What next for SA-Israel relations?

By Howard Sackstein

This week the South African ambassador to Israel was summoned by his hosts for a severe reprimand. Our government’s increasingly aggressive stance on Israel has caused relations between Jerusalem and Pretoria to implode.

One by one we have watched our despotic friends in the Middle East tumble from power and we watch silently as tens of thousands of Syrians die at the hands of Bashar al-Assad and that country spirals towards civil war.

At the end of August SA will attend a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, seat of one of the most oppressive theocracies of the modern era. Oil and political donations triumph over policy!

Despite our manifest indifference to human suffering, Israel features prominently in our foreign policy.

When Israel stopped a Turkish flotilla from illegally breaking the blockade on Gaza, South Africa, Nicaragua and Ecuador were the only countries, other than Turkey, to withdraw their ambassadors from Tel Aviv.

In March South Africa granted entry to renowned Hamas terrorist Abdul Aziz Umar to visit. Umar was given seven life sentences for taking part in the Café Hillel suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem, which killed seven people. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist and calls for the expulsion of Jews from the Middle East. Ironically, Umar was dispatched to South Africa to promote Israel Apartheid Week.

On August 22, cabinet approved a plan promoted by pro-Palestinian advocates “to require traders in South Africa not to incorrectly label products that originate from the Occupied Palestinian Territory as products of Israel”. Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies denied the move was politically motivated. But he was soon contradicted by the deputy minister of international relations, Marius Fransman, who said “economic diplomacy could be one of the most effective weapons of change in the Palestinian situation. I am glad to inform you that our government released a government notice, as a strategy to apply economic pressure on Israel”.

So sympathetic has South Africa become to the anti-Israel cause, that terrorists last month plotted a foiled attack on Israeli targets in South Africa.

When a group of South African Jewish organisations and business leaders attempted to address the poor service-delivery record of our government by training South Africans in Israel, Deputy Minister of International Relations Ebrahim Ebrahim applied pressure to scupper the trips.

Over the past 60 years Israel has been training people throughout the continent. Under the leadership of the Israeli trade union movement black South African civic leaders, trade unionists and NGOs have been trained in Israel since the 1970s. Yehuda Paz was banned by the apartheid government from entering South Africa. Today a post-apartheid government attempts to ban South Africans from travelling to Israel to meet Paz.

Last week Ebrahim informed South Africans that Pretoria discourages all South Africans from visiting Israel. He said “because of the treatment and policies of Israel towards the Palestinian people, we strongly discourage South Africans from going there”.

Probably the most scathing criticism of the deputy minister came from the chief rabbi of South Africa, Dr Warren Goldstein, who described the deputy minister as unfit to hold public office and demanded he resign. Goldstein said: “Your actions hark back to apartheid-style control of information and censorship. For the sake of peace and justice, we need more information, not less; we need more dialogue, not less; we need more connections with other societies, not less.”

Officials in Ebrahim’s own department told the City Press that Ebrahim was old and sometimes did not understand policy.

Israel has little to gain from its contributions to South Africa. In the mind of Israel, South Africa is underdeveloped, battling with corruption, spiralling unemployment, chronic under-education and crippling service delivery.

South Africans must worry that Israel may take action to restrict its technology from being used in South Africa. Many farmers in rural South Africa have moved from subsistence farming to commercial farming based entirely on Israeli know-how and technology.

South Africa’s bona fides have been further dented by the MTN-Turkcell court case in the US. Turkcell alleges that South Africa protected Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency in return for awarding a cellular licence to MTN. Assisting Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, not only destabilises the entire Middle East, but puts South Africa on a collision path.

South Africa has abandoned its desire to play any meaningful role in Middle East peace. Its failure to take any moral stand on international conflicts other than Israel/Palestine has undermined its own credibility. Its pronouncements are mere platitudes to gain domestic Muslim votes in the Western Cape and while service-delivery protests spread across the country fewer and fewer South African government officials will receive the training in Israel they desperately need.

Howard Sackstein has a degree in law and international relations, a post-graduate law degree and a masters in political advocacy and international conflict resolution. He was one of the founders of the Jewish anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and was executive director of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission. He led the only ANC delegation to ever visit Israel and took Nelson Mandela to Brussels on behalf of the World Jewish Congress.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Reagan’s Dangerous Game in Nicaragua

By supporting the contras, the president is undermining democracy in Central America

Natividad Vargas shifted his weight from one foot to the other, awkwardly folding and refolding his arms as he answered questions from the visiting journalists. The Honduran peasant sounded confused and a little frightened. It is the way refugees always sound when war sweeps over the countryside and drives them from their homes. He did not understand, he said, why two foreign armies were fighting in his native land — Nicaragua’s Sandinista army and the American-backed contras.

“We campesinos don’t understand politics,” Vargas said. “I don’t know why they’re fighting. The contras say they are fighting communism. But I don’t understand that.”

Eight days earlier, Vargas and his family, along with scores of others, had abandoned their farm a few miles from the Nicaraguan border after the Sandinista army had attacked contra strongholds there. In all, at least 15,000 Hondurans, perhaps many more, have been displaced by the war and forced to find squatter homes in towns away from the fighting. Neither the Honduran government nor the United States has provided them with any help.

Another peasant, a gaunt old man with white stubble on his dark face, gave a vivid account of the bomb, mine and mortar explosions he had heard as the opposing forces fought across his fields. “I was really frightened,” he said. “I don’t want to go back as long as there is firing.”

“The Sandinistas only come in because the contras are here,” said Eldermarina Gonzales, a displaced mother with five small children. “If the contras were gone, the Sandinistas would not come.”

The refugees we talked with were living in Nueva Esperanza, a hillside barrio outside of Danli, a quiet little farm town about an hour’s drive from Tegucigalpa and only fifteen miles from the border and the fighting. The contras operate a small hospital in Danli to treat their sick and wounded.

The more the peasants talked about the contras, the angrier they became. They did not like having to live with a foreign army in their midst — men who are well armed and well financed by the United States. “Look around you — this is a very poor country,” Jose Amaya, a merchant, said. “If we had money, we would all go to the United States. I think the contras should get out. They have no business being here. These countries are sisters. We should find a way to exist in peace.”

“I’m going to tell the truth, even if I get in trouble,” Natividad Vargas declared. “The truth is the contras treat us very badly. Imagine. You’re going to town and the contras are guarding the road and they ask us for papers. What right does a foreigner have to ask us for papers in our own country? They accuse us of helping the Sandinistas. They killed one of my neighbors and they killed his son. We don’t know why. It’s not our land anymore. They do whatever they want.”

As we were touring the neighborhood, we could hear the distant clatter of helicopters. Children pointed knowingly to the north at a few small, dark specks that were passing above a far mountain ridge and moving down the valley. Soon the specks became a swarm as more than a dozen American helicopters, Cobras and Chinooks, crossed overhead and disappeared to the south. They were ferrying Honduran soldiers to the war.

“The people have become so used to it,” a woman said. “They don’t even get scared anymore.”

Later, we drove a few miles south from Danli to the site where the helicopters were landing. It was a small airstrip built by the United States in the valley of Jamastran. Honduran soldiers — some serious, some loose and joking — were disembarking in the swirls of dust and trotting off down the country lanes. They were pulling heavy mortars behind them as they fanned out to set up defensive positions on the surrounding farms. An American army lieutenant named Lappas stepped forward from a circle of Honduran officers and told us to get lost. He pretended to be puzzled by our questions.

“What war?” he asked blandly. “I didn’t know we were at war. What makes you think there’s a war here?”

The Reagan administration is playing a dangerous game in Honduras: intentionally flirting with war. While the White House continues to claim that its military buildup here is strictly for training exercises, the Sandinistas and most Hondurans believe that the administration is trying to push both sides toward war in order to justify American military intervention in Nicaragua.

As a result of the occasional border clashes with Honduran troops, the Sandinistas might be drawn into a larger war against Honduras or, alternatively, the Honduran military might be shamed into launching a full-scale attack against Nicaragua. In either event, the Reagan administration could claim that a valued ally was under assault and that it must provide support by bombing Managua or even landing American troops inside Nicaragua. Fortunately, neither Honduras nor Nicaragua intends to play along. “What the United States fears,” Miguel D’Escoto, Nicaragua’s foreign minister, told me in Managua, “is not that we will attack Honduras. What they fear is that we won’t. They would like nothing better than for us to do it. We would be serving them on a silver platter the pretext they are looking for to make a direct intervention. They are concerned, they are angry that we don’t fall into the trap.”

In Tegucigalpa, Honduran officials put the matter more obliquely, but they also do not intend to be drawn into a war. Even while Sandinista soldiers were fighting inside Honduran territory, and Honduras was responding with troop deployments and bombing, Honduran diplomat Roberto Suazo Tome, an adviser to the minister of foreign affairs, was emphasizing the peaceful relationship between the two nations. “The Sandinistas have penetrated our borders from time to time, and there has even been sporadic fighting between our troops and theirs,” Suazo said, “but the level of political and diplomatic relations are good. We’ve had many meetings with high-level Sandinista officials. Our economic minister has traveled three times to Nicaragua to increase trade between the countries. Honduran businessmen have traveled to Nicaragua, and we are planning a visit to Honduras by Nicaraguan industrialists. So we have many different forms of economic cooperation. Nicaragua is a sister country. We do not use aggressive rhetoric toward them. We can exist with them, and we have mutual respect between our two systems.”

In any case, the Hondurans do not believe America can defeat the Sandinistas, through either military conflict or political agitation. “The contras are already defeated,” Suazo said. “It’s only a question of time.”

Suazo has proposed a solution to the problem along his border: the United States should grant asylum to the 20,000 contras and get them out of Honduras. “Our government has declared on many occasions that the presence of the contras in our territory is neither desired nor authorized nor tolerated,” he insisted. “But it is beyond our capacity to impede their presence.”

The civil government is not in control of events here. The generals are. The Honduran constitution forbids the stationing of foreign military forces without congressional approval, but the Honduran congress was not consulted. It was the Honduran military that provided sanctuary for the contra army and allowed the deployment of American troops. In return, the generals received generous military aid from the United States.

“The contras are like an unwanted guest,” Honduran sociologist and journalist Victor Meza explained. “But they are tolerated by the military because they bring money, and it means money to the military. The contras are their blackmail — their card to blackmail Washington for more aid. It’s also their card with which they can negotiate with the Sandinistas, behind the backs of thecontras. And the contras are good for business. They have made people rich here, civilians and military personnel.”

In Managua, Carlos Chamorro, editor of the Sandinista newspaper La Barricada, described the game being played by the Honduran generals. “They have to sell themselves to the U.S. to get the aid,” Chamorro said, “so they participate in actions against our army on the border, but they have been restrained. Why? Because they do not want to fall into a total death trap with Nicaragua.”

In the Honduran capital, Victor Meza offered a similar analysis. “The Honduran military,” he said, “knows that war should be avoided. Even if Honduras could win, they know that the real winner would be the United States and the contras, not Honduras. They know that if they were to win, this war, all the U.S. aid currently going to Honduras would then go to Nicaragua. So they know if they win, they lose. For that reason, they have done everything to avoid going to war.”

But if either the Honduran generals or the Sandinista leaders should miscalculate, then the Reagan administration may get what it wants — a regional war in Central America. American planes and troops could then be dispatched to fight another war in the name of freedom.

In Tegucigalpa, a city ringed by mountains, every window seems to have a spectacular view. Unlike Managua, the Honduran capital has a false glow of prosperity — downtown streets are clogged with traffic, store windows are filled with American toys and appliances. Militarization can be good for business without doing anything to improve a country’s basic economy; there was a similar bustle of commerce in Saigon at one time.

Honduras has been a passive nation for many decades, resigned to the dominance of military oligarchs and accustomed to blatant manipulation by American ambassadors. The country served as the staging area for the CIA’s overthrow of Guatemala’s elected government in 1954; now it has allowed itself to become the support base for America’s proxy war against Nicaragua. “The United States has a democracy inside,” said Efrain Diaz, a Christian Democrat in the national assembly, “but the U.S. acts as an empire in its relations with countries such as Honduras. We have let the United States do what it wants. We have been so easy.”

Popular dissent, nevertheless, is slowly finding its voice. Antiwar petitions proliferate as more and more organizations demand that the government stop America’s military adventure here. A blue and white peace poster proclaims, OUR COUNTRY — NOT FOR SALE, NOT FOR HIRE, NOT FOR LOAN … GRINGO TROOPS OUT … CONTRAS OUT.

“The worst problem this country has is that eighty percent of its people live in poverty,” Diaz explained. “Our main problem is development. It is not this problem with Nicaragua. But as long as we have this permanent conflict, I don’t think there is any way in which Honduras can really grow, no way Honduras can really develop. To me, that’s one of the consequences. The other is that we’re going to become a very polarized society. You cannot destabilize Nicaragua without destabilizing Honduras and the other countries in Central America.”

America’s Cold War-inspired foreign policy is creating some of the same problems in Central America that it produced twenty years ago in Indochina. While the Reagan administration claims to be defending the region’s democracies against Soviet domination, its military presence is actually undermining them. Anxious voices from the region plead futilely that East-West conflict is not the relevant issue. Poverty is the issue. So is the right of self-determination.

Miguel D’Escoto, Nicaragua’s foreign minister, has offered a powerful metaphor to explain why the American government cannot tolerate the revolutionary regime in his country. “We do not accept what the U.S. would like to impose — the status of a backyard nation,” he said. “The U.S. is afraid because it realizes that if Nicaragua is allowed to get away with this, then others will demand the same. The situation is like what you once had here in Nicaragua with the landowners. They related to peons in a very special way. The peon never entered the house. He came up to the front steps, he never sat down, he stood up. He took off his hat and he always addressed the señor as usted, the formal way of saying ‘you.’ Imagine the landowner’s reaction if one day, out of the blue, this peon walks right into the house, goes right into the living room and sits in the rocking chair. He folds his legs and calls the señor by the informal tú. He begins to relate as an equal. That’s what Nicaragua has done, too.”

Many citizens of Honduras would love to do the same someday.

America should realize that it has nothing to lose by abandoning its patronizing policies toward Central America’s small and struggling nations. Only then will the region be ensured of democractic and economic growth. As long as our government bullies, bribes and manipulates these countries, as it is now doing in Honduras, it can only expect that they will remain backward, cynical and utterly dependent.

Unfortunately, a new American perspective on Central America will have to wait until there is a new president in Washington. Even if Congress cuts off financing for the contras this year, the White House will not lose its hunger for conflict. The Sandinistas will continue to offer a mutual-security agreement for the region, but no one really expects Ronald Reagan to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The most we can hope for is to get through the last two years of this administration without stumbling — or being tricked — into a larger war.

Reagan’s final days will be a difficult period for all the players in Central America. The Sandinistas know that they are capable of defeating the contras in battle, even wiping them out, but they also know that a clear-cut victory would increase the risk of direct American intervention. The Reagan administration, mired in the contra-gate scandal, knows that it has little time left to defeat the Sandinistas. Will it simply walk away from a lost cause? Or will it launch a desperate strike against the Nicaraguan government? The recent announcement by the United States that it would be sending 3000 troops and 4500 national guardsmen from eight states and Puerto Rico to Honduras to participate in joint military exercises indicates that Reagan intends to raise the stakes in this dangerous game.

As for the contras, they may be pushed by the White House to go for quick victories inside Nicaragua this year in order to maintain political support in Congress. Given the Sandinistas’ superior forces, that could be a suicide mission. “I wouldn’t like to be with the contras right now,” said Victor Meza, “because I think everyone is trying to negotiate behind their backs. Possibly what will happen to them is that they’ll be forced into Nicaragua and they will be defeated by the Sandinistas.”

And if the United States finally abandons the struggle, as it did in Vietnam, a lot of Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom fighters” are going to be left behind when the last American helicopter departs.

Honduras, meanwhile, faces its own problems. Politicians here are beginning to wonder what will happen if Congress cuts off aid to the contras and Reagan abandons them. What will become of the occupying army that now virtually governs the southern flank of this country? Who will be able to control the contras?

“If the U.S. cuts off aid,” Roberto Suazo said, “the contras will need to eat. They’ll still need medicine. That could create very serious problems for Honduras…. What I mean to say is that a person with a gun will get what he needs. As we say in Central America, we need to feed our people today, not tomorrow. And the contras will do the same.”

Source: Rolling Stone

WORLD COURT SUPPORTS NICARAGUA AFTER U.S. REJECTED JUDGES' ROLE

The International Court of Justice ruled today that the Reagan Administration had broken international law and violated Nicaraguan sovereignty by aiding the anti-Government rebels.

The Court, the judicial arm of the United Nations, ordered Washington to halt the ''arming and training'' of the insurgents and to pay Nicaragua for damages caused by military attacks, some of which it said had been carried out by the United States itself.

The judgment, which was widely expected, came after 26 months of litigation on Nicaragua's complaint. U.S. Rejects the Verdict

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the United States rejected the Court's verdict, and said the body was ''not equipped'' to judge complex international military issues. The American spokesman added that ''we consider our policy in Central America to be entirely consistent with international law.'' [ Page 4. ] In January 1985 the Administration said it would defy the Court and ignore further proceedings in the case because of its view that the World Court, as it is commonly called, has no jurisdiction to decide cases involving ongoing armed conflicts. The Court rejected this position last November.

Throughout the case, the argument that the United States was giving military aid to the contras was never in serious dispute. However, before Washington formally withdrew from the case, it argued that United States actions against Nicaragua were ''collective self-defense'' against Nicaraguan support of leftist guerrillas in El Salvador and elsewhere.

The Court's findings were announced two days after the House of Representatives endorsed President Reagan's plan to provide $100 million in new aid to the rebels, with $70 million earmarked for military assistance. Three Dissenters

The World Court consists of 15 judges: one, the chief judge, from India; two from France, and one each from Poland, Argentina, Nigeria, Italy, Brazil, Senegal, Algeria, China, Norway, Japan, the United States and Britain. The American, British and Japanese judges dissented on the most important issues in the case.

The Court deferred a ruling on Nicaragua's petition for $370 million in damages from the United States, saying it wished to give the two countries a chance to negotiate a settlement themselves. However, the Court said it would step in if no accord materialized.

Abram Chayes, a counsel for the Managua Government, said in Washington today that as a result of the ruling, Nicaragua intends to sue the United States for more than $1 billion in damages in United States courts. In New York, Nora Astorga, Nicaragua's chief envoy to the United Nations, said her Government had asked for a Security Council meeting to discuss how to make the United States comply with the ruling.

The Court has no enforcement powers. It depends on voluntary compliance with its rulings by nations coming before it. #15 Counts Against U.S.

The Court ruled against the United States on 15 counts.

The Court found the United States violated customary international law and Nicaragua's sovereignty by ''training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces.'' It also found the United States guilty of direct attacks on Nicaraguan oil installations, ports and shipping in 1983 and 1984.

It held that the United States broke international law by authorizing overflights of Nicaraguan territory and by mining Nicaraguan ports and harbors in 1984. The Court also ruled that the United States trade embargo against Nicaragua, decreed in May 1985, violates a 1956 treaty of friendship between the two countries.

The Court also condemned the United States for allowing distribution of a Central Intelligence Agency manual on guerrilla warfare techniques to the contras, saying it encourages ''acts contrary to the general principles of humanitarian law.''

A majority of judges rejected the American claim that it was acting in the ''collective self-defense'' of El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras because Nicaragua was supporting rebel movements in these countries.

The Court said Nicaraguan aid to rebels in El Salvador was mainly in 1980 and 1981, before the United States stepped up its assistance to the contras, and did not constitute an ''armed attack'' on these countries under international law. As a result, the United States' response was judged disproportionate and unnecessary.

The Court said the United States was responsible in a general way for damage caused by the contras but not for specific acts by the rebels since it does not control them.

It also said the United States has no right to seek the overthrow of the Nicaraguan Government because of its political ideology. But to the surprise of some lawyers, it then added that this doctrine does not apply to ''the process of decolonization,'' suggesting that wars of national liberation may be justified in international law. Nicaraguan Leader Comments

The Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, the Rev. Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, said he hoped the United States Congress would now agree to stop new aid going to the contras. ''We want the U.S. to comply with the ruling so that there will be no more killing of our people,'' he told a news conference here.

If the United States fails to respect the judgment, Father D'Escoto said, its ''reputation as a member of the international community will be tarnished, perhaps irreparably.''

The Foreign Minister said he would discuss the verdict with the United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, in New York next week before returning to Nicaragua for talks with the other leaders of the Government on their next move in the dispute.

Although the World Court lacks the means to enforce its judgments, diplomats here say Nicaragua can still use today's ruling to cause the United States some diplomatic embarrassment. This could first occur in a demand that the Security Council authorize sanctions against the United States if it fails to comply. The United States would then be forced to exercise its Security Council veto to block the Nicaraguan resolution. Charges of Bias in Court

The United States walked out of the Court proceedings last year, saying they were biased in favor of Nicaragua.

In announcing that it did not recognize the Court's jurisdiction in January 1985, the Reagan Administration noted that the Soviet Union and most other nations had never assented to the World Court's jurisdiction, as the United States did in 1946.

But the World Court proceeded with the Nicaragua case, in accordance with its rules, as it did when Iran refused to recognize its jurisdiction in the United States' suit over the seizure in 1979 of American diplomats in Teheran as hostages. The Court ruled for the United States in that case.

The Nicaraguan case is widely seen by legal scholars as the most politically sensitive the World Court has ever adjudicated as well as representing its first involvement in an international conflict that is still under way.

The Court's verdict on most key issues was challenged by Judge Stephen M. Schwebel of the United States, Sir Robert Jennings, the British judge, and Judge Shigeru Oda of Japan. A Jurisdictional Challenge

The dissenting judges first challenged the Court's competence to hear the case. The issue was whether the Court could hear the case since the United States specifically refused it authority in 1946 over cases brought under international treaties. Nicaragua claims the United States violated its international obligations under the United Nations and Organization of American States charters.

A majority of judges said this restriction applies but argued that the principles of noninterference in other countries' affairs and respect for national sovereignty, which are enshrined in the United Nations charter, have now become part of the wider body of customary international law.

The Court, the majority ruled, is therefore competent to judge.

Judge Oda argued that the dispute was not ''legal'' but ''political'' and is ''more suitable for resolution by other organs and procedures.'' Lawyers said this suggested that Judge Oda believed the dispute should be judged by the Security Council.

Judge Schwebel's dissent emphasized that the Court had underestimated the gravity of the Nicaraguan Government's involvement in El Salvador.

''Nicaragua has not come to court with clean hands,'' Judge Schwebel said. ''On the contrary, as an aggressor, indirectly responsible - but ultimately responsible - for large numbers of deaths and widespread destruction in El Salvador, apparently much exceeding that which Nicaragua has sustained, Nicaragua's hands are odiously unclean. Nicaragua has compounded its sins by misrepresenting them in court.''

Source: New York Times

US dismisses World Court ruling on contras

The International Court of Justice yesterday ruled that US support to the contras in Nicaragua is illegal, and demanded that the US pay reparations to the Sandinistas.

Nicaragua intends to sue the US for more than dollars 1 billion in damages in US domestic courts as a result of yesterday's World Court ruling, a legal counsel for the Managua Government said yesterday in Washington.

In a 16-point ruling on a complaint lodged by Nicaragua , the judges rejected American claims of collective self-defence and found the US guilty of breaches of international law and the 1956 treaty of friendship between the two countries.

Three judges submitted dissenting opinions: Judge Oda (Japan), Judge Schwebel (US) and Sir Robert Jennings (Britain).
The US rejected the judgment, claiming that the Managua regime is a Soviet puppet.

A Soviet judge did not take part in the case. One judge was withdrawn last August and was only replaced in December - too late to join his 14 colleagues, plus the ad hoc judge added to the court to represent Nicaragua .

The Sandinistas had appealed to the World Court in April, 1984, to condemn American intervention, but the US has always maintained that the court's jurisdiction did not extend to ruling on this issue. The US does recognise the jurisdiction of the court in many other cases, such as the 1984 ruling on the Bay of Maine dispute with Canada.
In its verdict, the court stated that US acts and actions in training and financing the contras, the attack on Puerto Sandino and interference with maritime commerce constituted breaches of international law and the obligation not to violate national sovereignty.

The court argued that the two parties should negotiate on the level and type of reparations, but that if agreement could not be reached, the court would determine compensation at a later date.
The US benches were empty when the court announced its decision. Among the Nicaraguan delegates was the Foreign Minister, Father Miguel d'Escoto, who said he hoped that the verdict would help the Americans to re-evaluate their position and stop defying the law and the court.
Dutch legal experts argue that the decision is legally binding on the US, despite the American refusal to recognise the court's jurisdiction. One said: 'The USA has always recognised the ICJ. It should have changed its position earlier if it wanted to duck the court in this case. 'It is a well-known principle of international law that, if a country submits to the jurisdiction of a court, it cannot sidestep the court after the judges have started their work,' a professor of international law at Amsterdam University said.

WASHINGTON - In an initial reaction - the 400 pages of the ruling have yet to be digested - the State Department spokesman, Mr Charles Redman, said that the court's decision demonstrated that it was not equipped to deal with a case of such a complex nature.

Mr Redman said that the US and Nicaragua agreed that international law was not the issue but the facts of-the case, whether one accepted the US or Nicaraguan version of events. Both the Administration and Congress - on the basis of intelligence information not made available to the court - concluded that Nicaragua had launched unprovoked and unlawful attacks on its neighbours, he said.

At the same time, the US said that the latest crackdown in Nicaragua against the opposition was not unexpected and condemned the measures announced by President Daniel Ortega. 'We are deeply concerned at the welfare of the civilian opposition,' Mr Redman said.

Congressional sources opposed to Mr Reagan's policy said the Nicaraguan crackdown demonstrated that the Administration policy of trying to open up the political system had failed.

Source: The Guardian

US guilty of backing Contras

The United States has been found guilty of violating international law by supporting armed Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The International Court of Justice ruled that the US should compensate the country, although it has not yet fixed an amount.

But the Reagan administration has boycotted the case and says it will ignore the verdict of the United Nations court. In the US there have been demonstrations against a vote by Congress in favour of aid to the Contras. About 40 people were arrested during a protest in Minneapolis, and in Cleveland a group of demonstrators lay on the pavement to block the entrance to the federal building.

The UN court found the US guilty of contravening law by training, arming and financing paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua. These activities included the laying of mines in Nicaraguan waters in early 1984, as well as attacking a naval base and patrol boats.

The court held, by 12 votes to three, that the US was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State, not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty and not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce". It ruled the US was under an obligation "to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused" by the breaches.

Source BBC

Sandinistas claim election victory

Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista Front (FSLN) has claimed a decisive victory in the country's first elections since the revolution five years ago.

Within hours of the count beginning, the leader of the country's left-wing junta, Daniel Ortega, said he had gained nearly 70% of the vote in the presidential election. Mr Ortega said his party won a similar share of the vote in the parliamentary election. Mr Ortega said: "We can already say that the FSLN is the clear winner of these elections by an ample majority."

The Sandinistas' nearest rivals have so far polled just 11% of the vote but Nicaragua's leading right-wing parties boycotted the ballots. Turnout was high with an estimated 83% of the country's 1.5 million-strong electorate casting a vote. The Sandinistas have been at pains to convince the outside world, especially the US, that the elections were free and fair.

Approximately 400 independent foreign observers, including a number of Americans, were in Nicaragua to monitor proceedings. The unofficial British election observer, Lord Chitnis, said proceedings were not perfect but he had no doubt the elections were fair.

In 1979 the Sandinistas - named after an assassinated former leader of Nicaragua - ousted long-time dictator Anastasio Somoza. The Sandinistas have been at odds with the US ever since, especially since the superpower began assisting the party's main opponents, the Contras. The Contras, based in neighbouring Honduras, are engaged in a guerrilla war aimed at ousting the Sandinista Front.

Source: BBC

U.S. HALTS ECONOMIC AID TO NICARAGUA

Washington, April 1 -The United States today terminated the remaining $15 million in economic aid for Nicaragua because of that country's assistance to guerrillas in El Salvador, but held out the possibility of an early resumption of aid if the Nicaraguans continued their recent efforts to avoid involvement in the Salvadoran situation.

A statemnet issued by the State Department culminated a long policy review on what to do about aid to Nicaragua.

Under United States law, the Administration is required to cancel all aid if Nicaragua contributed to "violence" in another country.

Senator Jesse Helms, republican of North Carolina, who is chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Latin America, had pressed for the cutoff because of Cuban and other leftist connections in the Nicaraguan Government. Part of a $75 Million Program

The Administration, under the law, could also have demanded immediate repayment of the $60 million in loans already extended to Nicaragua under a $75 million program approved by Congress last year.

But the State Department announced that in order to retain influence in Nicaragua and to continue incentives for moderates there, the United States would not call in those loans.

Paradoxically, the decision to terminate the remaining $15 million in aid came as the State Department said that in the last few weels NIcaragua had virtually halted all flow of arms from its territory insurgents in El Salvador

The statement, read by William J. Dyess, a department spokesman said that the Reagan Administration had made "strong representations to the NIcaraguans to cease military support to the Salvadoran guerrillas. " Their response has been positive", he said. "We have no hard evidence of arms movements through Nicaragua during the past few weeks, and propaganda and some other support activities have been curtailed." Concern Voiced on "Other Support"

"We remain concerned, however, that some arms traffic may be continuing and that other support very probably continues,"he said.

State Department officials said that this "other support" included political and logistics help for the guerrillas, but Mr. Dyess refused to be more precise.

The Administration in February made public captured documents to demonstrate that the Salvadoran insurgents had received arms shipments from Vietnam, Cuba, and other Soviet-bloc countries by way of Nicaragua. The Carter Administration, shortly before it left office, suspended the $15 million pending a study.

The issue of whether the aid would be terminated had become a major problem because of a desire to help out the private sector and other moderates in Nicaragua and not push them closer to CUba. Important Interests at Stake Mr. Dyess said that "important United States security interests are at stake on the region."

"We want to encourage a continuation of recent favorable trends with regard to Nicarguan support for the Salvadoran guerrillas ," he declared.

"We also want to continue to assist moderate forces in Nicaragua which are resisting Marxist domination," he said. "working towards a democratic alternative, and keeping alive the private sector."

Mr. Dyess said the United States was considering a resumption of Food for Peace aid and additional development assistance in the future "if favorable trends continue there."

Source: New York Times