by William Robinson and David MacMichael*
Winter 1990
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A great deal of attention is being paid to the Nicaraguan election, to be held on February 25, 1990. While most outside observers see the elections as a contest between the governing FSLN (the Sandinistas) and their political opposition within the country, the Sandinistas view the elections as another stage of the struggle between the Nicaraguan Revolution and the government of the United States.
Although current U.S. strategy does not rule out a military element, its thrust is to transfer the anti-Sandinista struggle from the battlefield to the political arena. This strategy dates from the August 1987 Esquipulas Accords where the Central American presidents signed an agreement that sealed the defeat of Reagan's armed counterrevolutionary project. Even though the Republican right wing denounced the Esquipulas agreement and did their worst to undermine it, many Democrats and the more pragmatic Republicans accepted the contras' military defeat and made plans to exploit the political openings within Nicaragua. The slogan in Washington changed from "support the freedom fighters" to "democratization in Nicaragua."
The U.S. Embassy in Managua declared it was going to strengthen ties and gain increased influence with the "civic opposition." [1] The State Department put out a call for "other governments, foreign political organizations and private U.S. foundations ... to fund the Nicaraguan opposition." [2]
Soon after, the U.S. government began sending money, supplies, and political specialists to Managua in support of the anti-Sandinista opposition. This was the beginning of the all-out U.S. effort to create an anti-Sandinista political opposition.
The U.S. strategists faced a difficult task. For years the opposition believed that a contra military victory or a U.S. invasion would oust the Sandinistas. This left the internal political opposition fragmented and lacking any real grassroots political support. Splintered into some two dozen parties and factions, the opposition wasted its time on internal bickering. The U.S. largesse exacerbated divisions because it made money available for any professed opposition group. For many, anti-Sandinista activity was more business than politics.
In addition, many of the brightest potential opposition leaders left the country to join the constantly reshuffled ranks of CIA-organized contra political fronts. A Bush State Department official described the situation as, "Reagan's policy was to take the political protagonists out of Nicaragua; ours is to put [them] back in."
Thus, the first task for the U.S. was to bring the internal and external political fronts together: "Unification is the single most important ingredient for the success of the opposition." [3]
The U.S. needed to provide the opposition with a political definition that went beyond vague anti-Sandinista rhetoric. Next would come intensive training for "civic activists" and political instruction in building party infrastructures, youth and women's organizations. All these would then form the framework for the U.S. anti-Sandinista strategy.
As one Bush official explained, "The 1990 elections figure prominently in the administration's strategy toward Nicaragua. They give us a chance to test the Nicaraguans, to mobilize all international pressure possible against [the Sandinistas] ... ,to transfer the conflict in Nicaragua to the political terrain." [4]
The "Democracy Network"
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was set up by the Reagan administration in 1983 as an instrument to promote U.S. foreign policy objectives through direct political intervention in other countries. At the time of its inception, NED's founders explained that the public nature of NED activities would provide an important tactical alternative to clandestine CIA intervention. [5]
NED is funded wholly by Congress and its main purpose is to provide grants - in close consultation with the State Department - to U.S. organizations working to create and support the growth of pliant political institutions abroad. Although its charter defines it as "promoting democracy abroad," the NED 1985 annual report outlines its work as such: "planning, coordinating and implementing international political activities in support of U.S. policies and interests relative to national security."
There are four "core" groups which receive most of their funding from NED and which are tied to different facets of the U.S. political and foreign policy structure.6 These groups are the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NOI) and its Republican counterpart, the National Republican Institute (NRI) (the international affairs departments of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively), the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) (the operational part of the American Institute for Free Labor Development [AIFLD], whose ties to the CIA are well documented and which acts to generate moderate, pro-U.S. labor movements in Latin America), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center on International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
The logic behind this so-called "democracy network" is that the first two groups (NDI and NRI) form the bridge with political parties and organizations, the third (FTUI) forms ties with labor, and the fourth (CIPE) with private enterprise. The U.S. is using this intervention strategy throughout the world.
Beyond the "core" groups are a host of secondary organizations directly tied to U.S. foreign policy and intervention. These groups include Freedom House, the Center for Democracy, as well as many others who have received NED funding to begin election projects in Nicaragua. Among more "shadowy" groups receiving funding from NED for programs in Nicaragua are the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) , Delphi International, the Simon Bolivar Fund, and the Centro para las Asesoria Democratica (CAD).
In Fiscal Years 1989 and 1990, Congress appropriated $12.5 million for NED to use in the Nicaraguan electoral process. [7] If we just consider the $12.5 million of U.S. political aid this averages to about $10 per voter. It is the equivalent of a foreign power injecting $2 billion into a U.S. electoral campaign.
On August 4, 1988 NED held a major meeting in Washington, DC to map out "a more broadranging strategy" for developing the opposition. Present at the meeting were NED officials, core group representatives, and Richard Melton, the then recently-expelled U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua. The record of the meeting speaks of:
• " ... enlisting the support of the Central Americans generally.
• ... in preliminary phases - create lines of vertical command.
• ... continue to organize seminars and workshops, focusing on imparting group dynamics, styles of leadership, hypothetical situations.
• ... encourage more outside visitors to Nicaragua; visitors can provide moral and political support.
• .... try to establish a permanent [U.S.] presence in the country." [8]
In expectation of future funding the August 1988 meeting was used to map out a plan for expanding organizing activities in labor, the communications media, business, women and youth. A month later Congress approved $2 million which would go through NED to fund these programs. New contracting groups were brought in to administer the projects.
U.S. Parties Get Involved
NDI and NRI act as major conduits for NED funding of the Nicaraguan opposition and have received NED money for work on a "democratic development program" [9] in Nicaragua. The initial phase of this program called for formalized and systematic contacts with the opposition. An internal NDI document describes the initial efforts:
NDI and NRI, following conversations in Washington with visiting [Nicaraguan] party representatives and meeting with the other core institutes of the NED, visited Caracas, Panama, and Nicaragua to hold exploratory talks with civic opposition leaders .... Follow-up talks have also taken place and FTUI and CIPE have agreed to pursue opportunities for strengthening the civic opposition. [10]
NDI President Brian Atwood explained, "We have set about to unify the opposition and orient its anti-Sandinista activities." [11]
In 1987, NDI and NRI began organizing seminars with opposition leaders in Managua and abroad. According to an NDI official, these seminars "generate international support and attention for the opposition leaders, put the Sandinistas on notice, and explore the possibilities for the civic opposition to take major advantage of the Esquipulas opening." [12]
The seminars, funded with $600,000 in NED grants, "provide[d] training, in how to formulate organizational strategy and tactical planning, to the civic opposition ... designed around three core themes: party planning and organizational strategies, constituency building, and coalition formation .... U.S. and international experts will be brought in." [13]
These initial efforts also involved U.S. political consultants who analyzed the opposition groups' strengths and weaknesses. One NDI team went to Managua and reported:
The purpose of the mission was to find the answers to the following questions: 1) what are the prospects of democratization in Nicaragua? 2) what are the capabilities and needs of the democratic opposition? 3) what program(s) could be developed by NDI to assist the democratic opposition in presenting a unified, effective challenge to Sandinista rule?
On the surface, the overall environment for change in Nicaragua appears to favor the opposition. The economy is in shambles .... Poverty and despair are evident everywhere ... . It is hard to know where the Sandinista mismanagement ends and the country being bled white by the contra war begins. This should not be a problem for the democratic opposition; incumbents are almost always blamed for the mess at hand ....
But, the various political parties which are included in the opposition have been unable or unwilling to forge an effective coalition due to personal or ideological rivalries .... [14]
Delphi International Group
Another private organization central to the U.S. government's plan to influence the Nicaraguan electoral process is the Delphi International Group. In 1988, Delphi was the largest single recipient of NED funds.
Credit: Delphi International Group
Paul Von Ward, President of Delphi.
In 1988 Henry R. Quintero directed Delphi's Nicaraguan operations. [15] Quintero is an intelligence community veteran. Since World War II, he has served as an intelligence analyst with the Department of Defense, State, and U.S. Information Agency (USIA). He helped run the Institute for North-South Issues (INSI), which was exposed in the Iran/contra scandal as an Oliver North front group which had laundered illegal contra funds, while at the same time holding a $493,000 NED contract. [16]
Delphi's president is Paul Von Ward, a former government official who has held several delicate State Department posts in the U.S. and overseas between 1966-79. These positions included special personnel adviser to the Director General of the Foreign Service and U.S. coordinator of a special NATO committee on the "Challenges of Modern Society."
One of Delphi's projects is the "Nicaraguan Independent Media Program." This program is designed to strengthen the opposition media, including La Prensa. In 1984-85, La Prensa received $150,000 in NED funds. [17] Beginning with 1986, Delphi has acted as the conduit for NED funds to La Prensa, and more recently the amount of funding has jumped to almost $1 million. [18]
Delphi has also established the "Independent Radios Project" which equips and advises opposition radio stations in Nicaragua. It was begun with initial grants from NED totaling $150,000. In a memo from Delphi to NED the group stated that "Radio remains the best means for reaching the masses of Nicaragua ...." [19]
In August 1989, the Bush administration suspended the United States Information Agency funded contra radio station, "Radio Liberacion," operating from Honduras, and redirected its propaganda efforts to creating "Radio Democracia," a new outlet inside Nicaragua.
An October 19, 1989 letter from opposition leader Roger Guevara Mena to NED reported that the Board of Directors for "Radio Democracia" had been formed. The board was comprised exclusively of anti-Sandinista opposition leaders. "Radio Democracia," the letter explained, would serve as an "instrument of democratization and the formation of a civic consciousness, functioning both in the pre and post-election period, in order to offset the FSLN's instruments for consciousness formation."
Two of Delphi's Nicaraguan operations targeted youth and women, these groups were identified by NED strategists as special constituencies critical to the elections. Early in 1988, NED awarded Delphi $33,000 to create the Centro de Formacion Juvenil (CEFOJ) [20] and in 1989 another $118,000 to consolidate this new "civic youth organization." [21]
According to internal Delphi documents, their plan was to hold seminars throughout 1988 for a core group of youth leaders from rightwing political parties. As a paid national leadership, this group would identify regional leaders. These regional leaders would oversee local activists who would work in the nation's secondary schools, communities, and recreational centers to organize an anti-Sandinista political youth movement. [22]
This system of "multiplier" political training is standard in most NED-funded programs in Nicaragua. This method of political organizing is recommended in CIA, AID, and Department of Defense political operations manuals. [23] In fact, some of the language of the Delphi documents is remarkably similar to that of the CIA's 1984 contra "assassination manual" -Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare. One major difference is that the old reference to the "freedom struggle" against "communist dictatorship" has been updated to refer to the "civic struggle" for "democratic objectives."
Delphi's ''women's project" focuses on organizing efforts in the marketplace. "Nicaraguan women have begun to speak of the decisive role they must play in organizing rallies and protests." The document prescribes "seminars and workshops tailored to train 'multipliers' to train and motivate their peers to participate." [24]
Meanwhile, the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) worked to bring labor into the program. Like their political counterparts, the non-Sandinista trade union movement was splintered into small groups of diverse ideologies.
These groups include the Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CUS), two opposing Christian Democratic labor factions - both of whom call themselves the Nicaraguan Workers' Confederation (CTN), the General Confederation of Labor-Independent (CGTI), and the Communist party's Federation of Trade Union Action and Unity (CAUS). It was the U.S. government's strategy to unify the union movement. Thus, FTUI used $992,000 in NED money [25] to bring together the factions, at least nominally, in the Permanent Workers Congress (CPT). U.S. second secretary of the Embassy, David Nolan worked directly in this process. [26]
According to U.S. analysis, labor was especially critical to the election project. Although the Sandinistas had strong worker support, the U.S. strategy was to exploit Nicaragua's economic crisis in an attempt to turn the workers against the FSLN. From 1984 to 1989, FTUI received just under $2 million in NED grants for its labor programs; [27] this however does not include covert funding.
An FTUI internal document dated August 22, 1989 expressed satisfaction with its progress and described plans to spend $1 million more for mobilizing workers and their families. FTUI planned to organize 4,000 activists "to mount an effective, nation-wide effort to register workers and their families and then see that they vote." FTUI's training, supervision and direction of the effort was considered "crucial." The plan involved using a trained Managua headquarters staff to supervise an elaborate network reaching down to ten-member voter teams in towns and villages.
The United Nicaraguan Opposition
After months of negotiations, it was announced in June 1988 that the Union Opositora Nicaraguense (UNO) would be the formal coalition to represent the opposition in the upcoming elections. Their presidential candidate is La Prensa director, Violeta Chamorro.
Congress has stipulated that NED and its funding should only be used to "bolster democratic political systems ... [and] to support democratic activities in Nicaragua .... " [28] However, the majority of NED funding is going to specifically support UNO. In 1989, the CIA provided $5 million in covert funding for UNO "house-keeping," [29] and it is estimated that the CIA gave $10-12 million in the previous year. [30]
According to the independent research group, Hemisphere Initiatives, U.S. covert and overt support to anti-Sandinista political groups in Nicaragua totaled $26.1 million over the last five years. Added to this money is substantial funding provided by European, principally West German conservative foundations. [31]
In April 1989, the five Central American presidents signed the Costa del Sol agreement in which Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega agreed to call early elections. The U.S. took this as a signal to begin intensive efforts to organize the anti-Sandinista election campaign.
In an April 1989 meeting at the U.S. Embassy, NED representatives and charge d'affaires John Leonard planned the creation of the formal coalition which was later to become UNO. An internal NED document states that their primary strategy was to "organize the opposition around a single candidate. It should include as many parties as possible, COSEP and the labor movement, women and youth. The CDN [Coordinadora Democratica Nicaraguense] would form the core ... " [32]
NED had earlier given Delphi International $22,000 to consolidate CDN as the core group and to carry the unity process forward. [33] After the Costa del Sol agreement advanced the elections, a flood of visitors raced to Managua from Washington, DC to take part in the unity negotiations, including the president of NED, Carl Gershman. It was made clear to opposition figures that failure to get on-board meant no U.S. money. One top opposition leader confessed to a friend, "The pressures on me from the Embassy to join are really intense. They distributed a lot of cash; it's difficult for some to resist."
U.S. participants in the April meeting stated: " ... first [we must] successfully negotiate the conditions for the elections, the rules, and then they can squabble amongst themselves over the candidates." [34]
Late in April, representatives of the opposition were brought to Washington. In intensive consultations at the State Department, with members of Congress, and NED officials, the importance of unity was driven home. In June 1989, UNO was formally announced.
Via Civica
Another important component of NED's strategy was a non-partisan "civic group." An internal NED document of June 1989 stated:
There are three main centers of activity in this election. One is the political parties grouped in UNO. Another is the labor group in CPT. Each of these has come together fairly well and there is a good working relationship between them .... The third group is a civic group which has yet to solidify. Conceptually, this is a vital part of the democratic process .... The civic group needs to be independent and non-partisan, but it should also coordinate with the other two main groups and avoid duplication of effort.
On July 7, 1989, U.S. organizers and opposition representatives met in Managua. At a press conference shortly afterwards, they announced the formation of Via Civica, proclaiming it would press its cause "through ballots, not bullets." It was quickly dubbed "CIA Civica." Although Via Civica was announced as a "non-partisan grouping of notables," all ten members of its national executive committee were vocal anti-Sandinista activists. Three were UNO politicians, five were COSEP leaders, and two represented CPT unions. Olga Maria Taboada, named as head of Via Civica women's affairs, was a national coordinator of UNO's Nicaraguan Conservative Party.
In 1987 Taboada received $22,000 from NED to form a mothers of political prisoners group.35 The group considered all captured contras political prisoners, including the imprisoned former Somocista Guardsmen. Via Civica formed a youth organization which was headed by Fanor Avendano, also a leader of the Conservative Party and the director of CEFOJ.
With Via Civica established, the three separate components of the NED strategy were in place. As one NED document concluded, all three, UNO (political), CPT (labor), and Via Civica ( civic), were expected "to function during the election as a single unit." [36]
In 1989 NED allocated $540,000 - in three successive grants - to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) to administer Via Civica. [37] On the IFES board of directors sit many Reagan-era contra supporters. The Chair of IFES is F. Clifton White (also on the board of NRI), who helped the CIA develop covert propaganda used to encourage the U.S. public support for the contras.
The IFES treasurer is Richard Stone, a rightwing Republican and former Senator from Florida. In the early 1980s, Stone was Reagan's roving ambassador to Central America where he played a key role in supporting the contras. Stone is currently the chief operating officer of the Miami and Washington-based Capital Bank, which houses the accounts of UNO and IFES. [38]
Robert Walker is another IFES official. He was a White House aide to President Reagan and is currently vice president of Coors Brewing Company, which provided millions of dollars in private contra assistance. Walker is a close personal friend of contra political director Adolfo Calero.
In June 1989, Henry Quintero, having launched Delphi's media, youth, and women's projects, transferred to IFES to oversee its Nicaragua program, Via Civica. [39]
The Flow of Funds
As in countless other interventions, the U.S. is attempting to buy the Nicaraguan elections. In pursuit of this goal, the U.S. is flooding the country with money during a time of general economic hardship. One observer calls this the "strategy of gringo dollars." In violation of Nicaraguan law, millions of NED dollars marked for political use have entered the country without being registered with the Central Bank.
As late as November 1989, UNO still claimed to have not received funding from the U.S. Yet, a Barricada report explains how U.S. payments to opposition groups are laundered. [40] The article reports that hundreds of thousands of dollars which IFES provided for UNO use in voter registration was laundered through a Nicaraguan company, Construcciones y Proyectos, SA (CYPSA). CYPSA is the local subsidiary of Inversiones Martinez Lopez (IML). IML was founded by a one-time Somoza minister of finance who moved to Miami after the overthrow of the regime. IML recently opened an office in San Jose, Costa Rica.
CYPSA's president is Jeronimo Sequiera, a COSEP and Via Civica leader. Via CEvica's president, Carlos Quinonez, acknowledges that he sent Sequiera to San Jose to meet with Henry Quintero and IFES president Richard Soudriette on August 1, 1989. [41] On August 28, Quintero entered Managua and registered with immigration officials as a "consultant for CYPSA."
On each of the four registration Sundays in October 1989, UNO party workers set up refreshment stands at registration centers, and gave out thousands of sandwiches, coffee, and cold drinks. The UNO teams were transported in flashy new Toyota jeeps. For many, these scenes recalled the days of Somoza elections when peasants were trucked to the polls and rewarded for their vote with a meal and cheap liquor.
Although UNO denies receiving any money from the U.S. government, it has requested plenty. Its campaign budget, drawn up by the U.S. Embassy in Managua, and made available by a UNO delegation which visited Washington, DC in September, totalled $5.67 million. This included $1.24 million in salaries for campaign staff: $2,000 a month for the national campaign manager; $1,000 for administrators and publicity directors; and $500 a month for sixteen regional administrators. There is also $337,000 in vacation pay budgeted, $525,000 to run rallies and meetings, $600,000 for poll watchers, and $50,000 for international travel.
Credit: CPAC
F. Clifton White, Chair of IFES.
Via Civica is also able to spend openly. It has budgeted $55,000 for salaries, but many observers regard this as money to be spent for buying votes. Henry Quintero has acknowledged that IFES is paying 1,500 Via Civica ''volunteers'' a dollar a day, a considerable inducement in today's Nicaragua.42 High school students at one registration center in Managua told reporters the CEFOJ activists were giving out free T-shirts and offering students 20,000 cordobas (about one-half days' wages at the time) to sign up with UNO. [43]
Centro para las Asesoria Democratica
The U.S. is also coordinating the opposition's campaign from three key offshore centers. They are Miami, Caracas, and San Jose, Costa Rica. The U.S. has also established opposition centers in every Central American capital and their activities are coordinated regionally from San Jose through an NED conduit, Centro para las Asesoria Democratica (CAD).
CAD began under the name "Asociacion Pro-Democratica" (APD). Between 1986-87, it received at least $250,000 from NED for the "training and civic education" of the Nicaraguan opposition.44 In 1988, NED decided to expand APD's role, and changed its name to Centro para las Asesoria Democratica. NED then gave CAD $247,000 to "improve the communications within and among the organizations of the Nicaraguan democratic opposition and promote regional solidarity with the non-violent struggle for democracy in Nicaragua." [45]
With the beginning of the electoral process in April 1989, NED decided to link CAD more directly to the specific NED electoral projects. CAD would reinforce the already existing programs run by Delphi, the IFES, the FTUI, and the NDI and NRI. The plan called for CAD to inject clandestine and overt support to bolster these projects. [46]
The range of CAD activities included sending "reporters" from Costa Rica to reinforce the La Prensa staff in Managua. It also purchased Toyota vehicles in Costa Rica for UNO and then drove them into Nicaragua in order to avoid paying Nicaraguan import taxes. [47]
The Miami Connection
The city of Miami, where there is a large Nicaraguan exile community, has been transformed from a contra rearguard to a base for the electoral effort. A number of new Nicaraguan "civic opposition" groups have been formed there. The largest is the "Committee for Free Elections and Democracy in Nicaragua," headed by Jose Antonio Alvarado. In September and October 1989, Alvarado, with help from NRI, raised approximately $30,000 to produce UNO T-shirts and baseball caps which were sent to Nicaragua for distribution during the registration period. Alvarado also confirmed that the committee was receiving private donations from "wealthy Americans." [48]
La Prensa has recently opened a post office box in Miami for all its international correspondence. La Prensa will send a courier three times per week to pick-up its mail and bring it to Managua.
An important element in the Miami operation is the television station "Channel 23," owned by the Spanish-language UNIVISION network. In early 1989, the State Department contracted Channel 23's Carlos Briceno to develop a television production facility in Managua. On September 15, 1989 NED approved a grant for $200,000 to begin the project. In October, NED authorized NRI and NDI to rechannel some $300,000 into the television project.
In a letter from Briceno to the anti-Sandinista opposition, Briceno states:
This production facility, in addition to producing commercials for the political campaign, will also prepare reports in English and Spanish on the electoral process, aimed at abroad, in order to keep the world informed on the Sandinistas' compliance or non-compliance ....
... If you participate in the elections and there are anomilies [sic], the opposition needs to have the capacity to almost instantly transmit an international condemnation of this fraud through the use of satellite signals ....
In early May 1989, Briceno met with Jeb Bush, son of the president and a close friend of contra leader, Adolfo Calero. A few days after the meeting, Bush sent Briceno a letter which strongly endorsed the television project and wished him "every success in generating political and financial support."
Briceno also received help from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) whose president, Edward O. Fritts, sent letters to NAB affiliates soliciting "broadcast equipment which would be used to establish a facility to produce TV programming on behalf of groups opposing the Sandinistas."
Briceno also has stated that he intends to violate Nicaraguan law by trying to avoid import duty on the broadcasting equipment. In a letter to Barbara Haig, program director at NED (and daughter of Alexander Haig), Briceno wrote, " ... According to Luis Sanchez (UNO's 'Communications Director'), I won't have any trouble introducing the equipment. In the worst case I would have to pay a 15 percent import duty on it, which would not be substantial since purchase receipts could be fudged down."
The Contra Role
The Bush administration has opted for the electoral route in Nicaragua yet it has refused to forsake the contras as a bargaining chip. Moreover, the old guard of the contra leadership retains a certain degree of clout because of its ties to Nicaragua's right wing opposition and the U.S. far Right.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the Democratic leadership entered into a bipartisan compromise which sent $47 million in "humanitarian aid" to the contras. It was understood that the contras were to remain in their camps and undertake no offensive actions inside Nicaragua.
However, there appears to have been some rethinking of this strategy after the 10th anniversary celebration of the Sandinista Revolution. This event produced a groundswell of support for the FSLN which greatly troubled the U.S. government. On August 8, 1989, the Central American Presidents signed the Tela Accords, calling for the demobilization of the contras by December 5th. This sent shock waves through the U.S. government as policy makers scrambled to find a way to stop the demobilization.
In August 1989, the contras announced that there would be a large increase in the level of contra infiltration from Honduras. The rationale behind this move was to avoid detection by the U.N. monitoring troops sent as a condition of the Tela Accords. By September, Nicaraguan intelligence found that this number had reached 1,000 a month.
It was clear that the reappearance of the contras was not separate from the electoral activity. Nicaraguan government officials believed the contra infiltrations would recreate fear in the rural areas after months of relative peace; thus the Sandinistas could not maintain their claim to have militarily defeated the contras. The lesson would be drawn that unless the Sandinistas were voted out, there would never be peace.
The contras also hoped to provoke government reactions such as a reintroduction of the military draft which would alienate voters or that could be denounced by the opposition as interfering with the electoral process.
Nicaraguan government reports and independent investigators (including the North American church group, Witness for Peace) state that the contras have both openly and covertly acted for UNO. In one case in the town of La Gateada in Chontales, in September, numerous witnesses testified that the contras, trying to pass themselves off as state security officers, murdered a local resident who had been accused of being a Sandinista infiltrator of UNO.
Elsewhere the contras carry and distribute UNO leaflets. Peasants have reported being threatened at gunpoint by contras who tell them they must vote for UNO. During most of 1988, contra military actions averaged about 50 per month. That figure jumped to 100 in the first half of 1989 and by October, it had risen to 300 actions per month. [49] Sandinista electoral officials have been threatened and murdered and during the October 1989 registration period at least 37 registration places had to closed because of contra military actions. [50]
In November 1989, Barricada caused a controversy by reprinting a letter allegedly from Alfredo Cesar to Enrique Bermudez that had appeared in El Tiempo, the independent newspaper of San Pedro Sula, Honduras. In it Cesar tells Bermudez not to demobilize because the existence of the contras is necessary for a UNO victory.
Cesar denounced it as a forgery and former President Jimmy Carter, at an Atlanta conference, criticized the Sandinistas for dirty politics in reprinting the letter. However, until a few months ago Cesar, as a political director of the contra movement, routinely made such statements publicly.
As for Bermudez, in October 1989, he signed the following communique:
We want to express all our backing and unconditional support for the UNO candidates .... We are not going to put down our arms, we are not going to accept demobilization .... We will carry on in the mountains with our weapons loaded against Sandinismo. So as to avoid fraud, we are going to prevent Sandinista accomplices and collaborators from registering. We are going to assure the triumph of UNO. [51]
After a contra ambush killed 18 young reservists in route to their hometowns to register for the elections, President Daniel Ortega angrily announced the end of the government's unilateral cease-fire. UNO denounced Ortega's action as detrimental to the holding of free elections. The U.S. media and Congress reacted by condemning the Sandinista revocation of the cease-fire, not the killing of the reservists.
Conclusion
Whether the U.S. effort to oust the Sandinistas pays off in February 1990 remains to be seen. However, the long-term intervention strategy should not be lost sight of. University of Southern California professor, and executive director of Inter-American Dialogue, Abraham Lowenthal writes, "Even if [the opposition] does not win - and defeat is probable - the [electoral] effort opens the way .. .. In the long run, their best chance of countering the Sandinistas is by building national support step by step. Sustained internal opposition can eventually pay off." [32]
Credit: NDI
NDI President, Brian Atwood (second from left).
In its attempt to defeat the Sandinistas, the U.S. government has organized an astonishing array of resources and has expended huge sums of money. Even though NED claims to be a legitimate, above-board institution, it is in reality, a quasi-official conduit for U.S. covert and overt activities in Nicaragua and in dozens of other countries. [53]
NED claims it is building a framework for democracy in Nicaragua. However, a close examination of NED documents clearly shows it is attempting to manipulate the electoral process to U.S. government ends. Through NED's "legitimate" activities, the U.S. government obfuscates its true intentions for Nicaragua.
U.S. actions toward Nicaragua have a strange and disturbing Orwellian character. Intervention is defined as non-intervention. Non-partisan bodies are made up of highly partisan figures. Those who champion democracy in Nicaragua have shown contempt for democracy in the rest of the world.
This is the new covert action. Kinder, gentler and open to view - if you only know where to look and what to look for.
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Notes:
* William Robinson is the ANN (Nicaragua News Agency) correspondent in Washington, DC and co-author of David and Goliath; The U.S. War Against Nicaragua. David MacMichael, a former CIA analyst, is an outspoken critic of U.S. intervention who researches and writes on V .S. foreign policy.
1. See Central American Information Bulletin, February 24, 1989, special report, ''The Chileanization of the Nicaraguan Counterrevolution," William Robinson. See also, New York Times, August 26, 1987, October 15, 1987.
2. State Department briefing, August 10, 1987.
3. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), internal memorandum, "Nicaragua, Municipal Elections," the report is of an NDI survey mission, October 31, 1987, prepared by Martin Anderson and Willard Dupree.
4. Peter Rodman, National Security Council (NSC) representative, in testimony to the "Bipartisan Commission on Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua," May 10, 1989, Washington, DC. Rodman is Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs at the NSC. He opened his statement confirming he was speaking on behalf of the administration.
5. Memorandum prepared by David MacMichael for the Institute for Media Analysis' "Nicaragua Election Monitoring Project," November 1989.
6. Carl Gershman, president of NED, public testimony before the International Operations Subcommittee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, September 28, 1989.
7. Congress approved $1.5 million in a special Nicaragua appropriation in September 1988, then another S2 million in June 1989. In October it approved $9 million, allocated specifically for the electoral process.
8. Internal NED document, August 1988.
9. Op. cit., n. 3.
10. Ibid.
11. Central America Information Bulletin, op. cit., n. 1.
12. NDI Program Assistant Michael Stoddard, in testimony before the "Bipartisan Commission on Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua," May 10, 1989, Washington, DC.
13. NED's executive summary on Nicaragua projects, "Programs of the Endowment and its Institutions in Nicaragua," 1988; updated version, Fall 1989.
14. Op. cit., n. 3.
15. Phone interview with Delphi President Paul Von Ward.
16. Ben Bradlee, Jr., Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North (New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1988), pp. 233-36.
17. NED Annual Reports, 1985-87; op. cit., n. 13.
18. La Prensa began to receive covert CIA subsidies as early as 1979 to enable it to play the counter-revolutionary role that El Mercurio had done during the Allende years in Chile and that The Daily Gleaner performed in Jamaica in 1976-1980 in the anti-Manley effort. In Nicaragua, the result was that the incorruptible managing editor, Xavier Chamorro, resigned along with 80 percent of the staff to found the pro-Sandinista El Nuevo Diario. The new editor, Violeta's son, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, later went into self-exile in Costa Rica where, on a CIA salary supposed to have been several thousand a month, he published an exile edition of La Prensa and served on the contra political directorate.
19. "Support for Nicaraguan Independent Radios," internal Delphi document, June 1989; op. cit., n. 13.
20. Op. cit., n. 13.
21. Op. cit., n. 13.
22. ''Youth voter education project in Nicaragua," NED summary of the Delphi programs, June 1989; "CEFOJ Evaluation," internal Delphi evaluation of the first year of the program.
23. Department of the Army, "U.S. Army Guide for the Planning of Counter-insurgency" (Washington, DC, 1975); William Robinson and Kent Norsworthy, David and Goliath (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987), p. 216.
24. ''Women's voter education and training project in Nicaragua," internal Delphi document presented to NED, June 1989.
25. Ned Annual Reports, op. cit., n. 17.
26. See William Robinson, "Special Report: The Melton Plan - Chronicle or a Destabilization Plot Foretold," Central America Information Bulletin, August 10, 1988.
27. Op. cit., n. 13.
28. AID Report to Congress on Public Law 101-119, November 1989.
29. Newsweek, September 25, 1989.
30. UPI Dispatch, August 1, 1988.
31. West German foundations which support UNO include the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Friederick Naumann Foundation. The West German donations alone are in the several million dollar range. For more information see, Ralph Fine, David Kruse, Jack Spence, and George Vickers, "Hemisphere Initiatives: Nicaragua Election Update Number 2-Foreign Funding of the Internal Opposition," Boston, October 16, 1989.
32. Internal NED document, April 1989.
33. Op. cit., n. 13.
34. op. cit., n. 32.
35. Robinson, op. cit., n. 1; op. cit., n. 13.
36. Op. cit., n. 32.
37. Op. cit., n. 13.
38. Holly Sklar, "Washington Wants to Buy Nicaragua's Elections - Again," Zeta Magazine, December 1989, p. 46.
39. Telephone interview with IFES Director. Richard Soudriette.
40. Barricada, October 10-11, 1989.
41. Ibid.
42. From a source close to IFES.
43. Barricada, October 9, 1989.
44. op. cit., n. 13.
45. Op. cit., n. 13.
46. ADF document, "Modified Programmatic Structure and Contents for NED Grant 89-08.0 (Elections Nicaragua-90)," July 1989. One of the U.S. conduits that NED used to fund CAD is the America's Development Foundation (ADF). This Alexandria, Virginia-based organization is headed by Michael Miller.
47. Internal CAD document, "CAD-Centroamerica, Participation Through Media and Civic Organizations," November 2, 1989.
48. Phone interview with Jose Antonio Alvarado, October 1989.
49. Nicaraguan Ministry of Defense bulletin, October 1989.
50. Official report on the registration process, Nicaraguan Supreme Electoral Council, October 1989.
51. Barricada, November 2, 1989.
52. Abraham Lowenthal, "Even Loss in Nicaragua Vote Can Be Gain," Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1989, Op/Ed page.
53. A policy report by the Resource Center provides good background material on NED activities. The report is due to come out in February 1990. For more information write, The Resource Center, P.O. Box 4506, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87196.