Reagan at the Wall

ON June 12, 1987, the cold war entered a terminal phase, in ways that few could have anticipated, and in fact, almost no one did — with the exception of a president down on his legendary luck.

If in 1984 Ronald Reagan had proclaimed that it was “morning again in America,” three years later the evening was coming fast for a presidency that had spent most of its energy. The Iran-contra scandal had damaged him, and in March 1987 only 42 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing. Reagan’s diary reveals a president losing focus, with entries registering more enthusiasm for old videos than the crushing business of state. On May 23, 1987, a good day: “Ran a movie about Big Foot & to my surprise I was in it — a shot of me & Bonzo on a TV set.”

But the aging actor still had a trick or two up his sleeve. For months, a trip had been planned to Berlin, a city famous for its stages. John F. Kennedy had given one of the greatest speeches of his presidency there in 1963; it would be a challenge for Reagan to duplicate the excitement of that visit. Like him, the cold war seemed to be losing steam. But Reagan’s loyal aides pitched the idea of a major speech at the Brandenburg Gate, and the writers began to crank out drafts. A single line kept calling attention to itself: an appeal to tear down the Berlin Wall, which ran alongside the gate.

In a way, it was a no-brainer. No one had ever liked the wall, since its construction in 1961. But to express that antipathy in 1987, as tensions were winding down, was impolitic. An encouraging new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was bravely campaigning for perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (opening) and a third word we don’t remember as well, uskorenie (acceleration). Things were trending in the right direction in United States-Soviet relations. Most of Reagan’s foreign policy advisers opposed adding incendiary language.

There were other complications as well. The Brandenburg Gate offered an impressive backdrop, but it was so close to East Berlin that the Secret Service feared the president could be exposed to Communist snipers. Yet building a protective barrier would erect a wall around him at the same time that he was calling for the wall to be torn down. Worse, it would deny TV audiences a chance to see the wall. An ingenious solution was found — a glass partition that gave a clear view of the wall, and the gate.

But to those attuned to nuance, the gate posed its own problems.

It was not much of a gate, and for most of its history, it was illegal for anyone who was not a member of the Prussian royal family to walk through its central passage. A huge ceremonial structure, it borrowed features from the Acropolis, in tribute to the long fascination ancient Greece exerted upon the German imagination (a fascination that in no way extends to the current German-Greek relationship). For many Germans, however, its ghosts did not conjure Aegean democracy or Beethoven, but helmet-tipped Prussians and goose-stepping Nazis. The Reagan team might have been sensitive on that point, after the controversy caused by his visit to a Nazi cemetery on his previous trip to Germany.

One of Reagan’s gifts, however, was not to care about the wisps of history, or the contrary advice of his advisers. He insisted that the line be included, and so, midway through the speech, the president said, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The lines were delivered crisply. It is unusual for a president to use the second-person imperative — it’s one of the reasons we remember J.F.K.’s invocation to “ask not.” Near the end, Reagan spotted a bit of graffiti spray-painted on the wall, and read it aloud: “This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.”

Shortly after, he flew back to Washington. His diary entry for June 12 does not overwhelm with its acuity (“I was surprised that we traveled in bright sunshine for about 8 of the 8 1/2 hour flight. It didn’t get dark until a little less than an hour out and yet it was after 3 A.M. back where we left”). But something had changed in the atmosphere. A gate had opened. And two years later, it was exactly as he predicted. The wall fell — not because Mr. Gorbachev tore it down, but because he did nothing at all.

To this day, Reagan attracts fierce partisans, eager to claim he “won” the cold war, and this speech is often cited in that argument. The claim feels forced, given that the U.S.S.R. outlasted his presidency by two years. But on this day, Reagan’s inner actor proved shrewder than most who would have counseled realpolitik. His theatrical turn on Berlin’s greatest stage stated a great moral truth, the way the best theater does, and proved the accuracy of Mr. Gorbachev’s third concept, uskorenie — acceleration.

Mr. Gorbachev deserves some of the credit, and in fact, the vast majority of young Germans in 1989 felt gratitude to him, not to Ronald Reagan. No one deserves more credit than the young graffiti-painters who protested against the wall for 28 years, and finally liberated themselves. But surely some recognition should go to a president who had the good sense to ignore the advice he was given, and read the writing on the wall.

Source: New York Times

Iran-Contra: The Cover-Up Begins to Crack

Until last week the Iran-contra scandal seemed ready to fade from the courts, the news and the mind. After costing more than four years and $25.5 million, the investigation headed by special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was limping to a close. A federal appeals court had overturned Lieut. Colonel Oliver North's felony conviction, and a retrial seemed unlikely. The same outcome seemed possible for former National Security Adviser John Poindexter's conviction.

Then the scandal roared back to life with a series of stunning developments. They suggested that:

-- Top intelligence officials had engaged in covering up the Reagan Administration's attempts to evade a congressional ban on aid to the Nicaraguan rebels by siphoning off profits from secret arms shipments to Iran.

-- The Iran-contra affair may be only part of a broader and previously undisclosed pattern of illegal activities by intelligence agencies during the tenure of Ronald Reagan and his CIA chief William Casey. Sources close to the unfolding investigation of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International told TIME that U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, maintained secret accounts with the globe-girdling financial empire, which has been accused of laundering billions of dollars in drug money, financing illegal arms deals and engaging in other crimes.

The discovery of the CIA's dealings with B.C.C.I. raises a deeply disturbing question: Did the agency hijack the foreign policy of the U.S. and in the process involve itself in one of the most audacious criminal enterprises in history? Items:

-- Alan Fiers, head of the CIA's Central America task force from 1984 to 1986, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of lying to Congress about when high- ranking intelligence officials first learned of the illegal diversion of funds to the contras. Fiers said he became aware of the diversions and informed Clair George, then the CIA's deputy director for operations, in the summer of 1986. But, Fiers said, George ordered him to deny any knowledge of the transfers when he testified before the House intelligence committee that October. In exchange for being allowed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors instead of more serious felonies, Fiers is now assisting Walsh's investigation. With his help, Walsh will probably seek a perjury indictment of George and perhaps other present and former government officials.

-- Three days after Fiers entered his plea, the New York Times disclosed that Walsh possesses tapes and transcripts of hundreds of telephone conversations between CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and agents in Central America. The talks occurred during the period when North, former Air Force General Richard Secord and his business partner Albert Hakim were operating their secret arms pipeline. The tapes -- which have been in Walsh's hands for three years -- were recorded on a system that George installed at the agency's operations center in the early to mid-1980s.

In recent months Walsh has used the tapes to prod the memory of North and other reluctant witnesses before the grand jury that is still gamely looking into the scandal. The tapes are expected to furnish evidence that could lead to further indictments. Some transcripts of the recordings have been examined by staff investigators for the congressional Iran-contra committees. But curiously, until last Friday, no member of the Senate intelligence committee was aware of the recordings.

-- Investigators probing B.C.C.I. have told TIME that the Iran-contra affair is linked to the burgeoning bank scandal. Former government officials and other sources confirm that the CIA stashed money in a number of B.C.C.I. accounts that were used to finance covert operations; some of these funds went to the contras. Investigators also say an intelligence unit of the U.S. defense establishment has used the bank to maintain a secret slush fund, possibly for financing unauthorized covert operations. More startling yet, even before North set up his network for making illegal payments to the contras, the National Security Council was using B.C.C.I. to channel money to them. The funds were first sent to Saudi Arabia to disguise their White House origins; then they were deposited into a B.C.C.I. account maintained by contra leader Adolfo Calero.

The Iran-contra affair has been characterized by U.S. officials as a rogue operation managed by overzealous members of the National Security Council. But if Fiers is correct, top-ranking CIA officials not only knew about the operation and did nothing to stop it; they also participated in an illegal cover-up.

One of the first casualties of the disclosures could be the nomination of Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates to head the CIA. Though Fiers did not implicate Gates in the deception, some Senators find it hard to believe Gates' claim that he knew next to nothing about the Iran-contra scheme when he served as Casey's principal deputy. Four years ago, that suspicion forced Gates to withdraw after Reagan picked him to succeed Casey, who was dying from brain cancer.

Those misgivings appeared to have faded when George Bush chose Gates to replace William Webster. But the mounting questions about the scandal could put his nomination on hold. The Senate intelligence committee, which had expected to begin its hearings on Gates this week, decided to hold off. Members may want to question Fiers, George and perhaps others about what Gates may have known. If the committee's uncertainty drags on, it could run into the August congressional recess, which would delay hearings until September.

Sensing the threat to Gates' confirmation, Bush rushed to defend his nominee. He implored the Senate not to leave Gates "twisting in the wind" through the summer. "Get the men up there who are making these allegations," Bush demanded. "Isn't that the American system of justice -- innocent until proven guilty?"

But Gates is just one more figure twisting in a resurgent storm. Suddenly a number of unanswered questions assume a new urgency. Just what did Ronald Reagan -- and George Bush -- know? And when did they know it?

Beyond that, the discovery of the secret intelligence-agency accounts in the renegade B.C.C.I. raises a whole new set of unsettling possibilities. The most serious is that U.S. spymasters may have been undertaking unauthorized covert operations and all the while furthering the ends of B.C.C.I. By providing clandestine services for intelligence agencies in numerous countries, B.C.C.I. was able to cloak its activities in an aura of national security and thereby stave off investigations from banking officials in the U.S. and abroad.

In 1988 Gates is reported to have told a colleague that B.C.C.I. was "the bank of crooks and criminals." Yet when customs agents investigated the bank in 1988, they found "numerous CIA accounts in B.C.C.I.," says former U.S. Commissioner of Customs William von Raab. Those, he says, were being used to pay agents and "apparently to support covert activities."

Senate investigators, who have known of the agency's links to the bank, have demanded an explanation from the CIA -- so far, without getting a satisfactory response. One question they might ask is whether the CIA link to B.C.C.I. explains the Justice Department's slowness in pursuing its case against the bank. Last year the Justice Department tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Florida state comptroller not to lift B.C.C.I.'s license to operate in that state.

Armed with Fiers' testimony and the treasure trove of CIA phone tapes, Walsh is likely to seek more indictments. In addition to George and perhaps other CIA officials, there are two potential targets outside the agency: former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and Donald Gregg, now U.S. ambassador to South Korea. In his plea Fiers says he lied to Congress at a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Nov. 25, 1986. On the same day, Abrams testified that no one at the State Department knew of the diversion of funds. A few days later, when Abrams made a second appearance before the lawmakers, Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri angrily accused him of having lied earlier. "You've heard my testimony," Abrams said during their exchange. "I've heard it," Eagleton replied, "and I want to puke."

Fiers may also implicate Gregg, a onetime CIA officer who served as a foreign policy adviser to then Vice President Bush. Gregg was a close friend of Felix Rodriguez, another former agent, who became a crucial link in the North pipeline to the contras. But Gregg has repeatedly denied before Congress that the office of the Vice President recruited Rodriguez. One tantalizing entry in North's diary indicates that on Jan. 9, 1986, North and Fiers had a phone conversation about Rodriguez. It reads, "Felix talking too much about V.P. connection." Was the reference to Gregg or to Bush?

Walsh's biggest worry may be that the Senate intelligence committee will call Fiers and George as witnesses at Gates' confirmation hearing. Last July a federal appeals court set aside North's 1989 conviction on the ground that some witnesses who testified against him may have been influenced by his congressional testimony about Iran-contra. That testimony could not be used against North in court because Congress had granted him immunity. Concerned that future Senate testimony by Fiers or George might also be put beyond his reach by a grant of immunity, Walsh last week issued a pointed warning to the committee not to imperil his case. "Our investigation has reached a point of significant breakthrough," Walsh said. "To jeopardize this progress in a vain hope of getting quick facts as to an individual nomination would be regrettable."

In one respect, at least, Walsh is right: an individual nomination is no longer the central issue. The main questions now focus on whether the intelligence community covered up illegal acts and how high the conspiracy reached.

Source: Time

Mobutu meets with President George Bush at the White House

By most accounts, the United States was involved in both the death of Lumumba and the coup of 1965, which brought Mobutu to power, although the extent of this involvement is not certain. In any case, because of his longstanding relations with the American intelligence community, Mobutu was very aware of United States backing both as a resource and as a handicap.

Zaire generally received firm American support in the late 1960s and found American influence helpful in various economic and political disputes. The promulgation of a generous investment code in 1969 and a moderate political stance lured extensive foreign, including American, investment, and a substantial program of United States aid was continued. Mobutu returned from a visit to the United States in 1970 with pledges of substantial new investment. Relations continued to be warm until the Zairianization decree of November 30, 1973, which led to the transfer of a large number of foreign-owned enterprises, including facilities owned by international oil companies, into Zairian hands. Thereafter, relations were chilly.

But in 1975, the United States and Zaire found themselves supporting the same faction in the Angolan civil war (see Regional Relations , this ch.). The United States, apparently deciding that it needed a stable Zaire for political and economic reasons and sensing the potential for Zaire to support United States strategic interests in sub-Saharan Africa, promoted the relationship with Zaire. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's first official trip to Africa in April 1976 included a long visit to Kinshasa.

The Carter administration, which had declared its number-one foreign policy objective to be the promotion of human rights, posed a problem for the Mobutu regime, with its poor human rights record. For the first time, criticism of Mobutu by members of Congress and by voluntary agencies was met with some sympathy by the United States president. However, the skeptical attitude toward the Zairian government was partially reversed by Shaba I and Shaba II. On the occasion of the second invasion in 1978, President Jimmy Carter supported Mobutu's accusations of Cuban and Soviet involvement, even though no hard evidence was presented. But the United States refused to become involved militarily and sent only nonlethal military supplies, such as medical and transportation equipment. In 1980 the House of Representatives (concerned over human rights violations and the misuse of United States aid) voted to end all military assistance to Zaire; but the Senate reinstated the funds, reacting to pressure from Carter and American business interests in Zaire.

The election of the more conservative Ronald Reagan as United States president was well received in Zaire, and in fact United States concerns about Mobutu's human rights record became muted. Moreover, Mobutu again was seen as providing useful services to the United States in its struggle against the Soviet Union and Soviet allies such as Libya and Angola. The domestic context in the United States had changed, however, in that an increasing number of American groups had become opposed to administration policy toward Zaire.

As United States-Zaire relations became more visible in Washington, Mobutu countered by becoming more active in promoting a positive image of himself and his country. Two Washington lobbying firms with ties to the Reagan administration received hefty contracts from Mobutu.

Nevertheless, in November 1990, Congress cut military and economic aid (except for some humanitarian aid) to Zaire, crystallizing the longstanding division between Congress and the executive branch and between liberals and conservatives on Zaire policy. As it adjourned, Congress denied the Bush administration's request for US$4 million in military aid and stipulated that US$40 million in economic aid be funneled through humanitarian agencies not affiliated with the Zairian government. Its decision was based on human rights violations--the September 1990 Lubumbashi massacre in particular--and accusations that Mobutu's vast wealth was largely stolen from the Zairian people.

By 1992 the United States-Zaire relationship had reached a turning point. The end of the Cold War had diminished the strategic significance of Zaire to the United States, and events in Zaire since 1990 had made it clear that Mobutu's days in power were numbered. In 1991-92, the United States, together with Belgium and France, attempted to promote peaceful political change in Zaire, by pressuring Mobutu to oversee the transition to democratic government and to depart voluntarily. The Zairian opposition, however, still perceived this approach as a continued "propping up" of the Mobutu regime and called for an unequivocal United States rejection of Mobutu, which was not forthcoming.

In October 1992, the United States joined Belgium and France in extending official support to the Tshisekedi government. The United States also reiterated its support for the national conference and its hope that the conference would lead ultimately to fair and free elections.

Since that time, the United States has continued to support the legitimacy of the Tshisekedi government and to insist that the Mobutu government live up to its promise to turn over real power to that government. It has consistently denounced Mobutu's obstruction of the transition process and has refused to recognize the rival Birindwa government. Moreover, the Clinton administration has taken several concrete steps to show its displeasure with the Mobutu regime. The United States has not replaced its ambassador to Zaire, who was reassigned in March 1993. The United States also refused to allow Zaire's central bank governor into the United States to attend a World Bank-IMF meeting and has made it clear that Mobutu is not welcome in the United States. Nevertheless, the United States has stopped short of taking or even advocating harsher measures against the regime, such as the imposition of economic sanctions or the confiscation of Mobutu's assets abroad. As such, in the view of some observers the United States has put only very limited pressure on Mobutu to step down. Many see this policy as an indication that the United States still regards Mobutu as a stabilizing factor, a viewpoint that would explain United States acceptance of Mobutu as part of the transition process in Zaire. The United States-brokered political accord that accompanied the Transitional Act permitted President Mobutu to remain as titular head of state and thus a legitimate institution of government, albeit with limited powers. One unintended effect of this arrangement has been to confer some legitimacy on Mobutu and thus allow him to obstruct the transition process and the functioning of the legitimate government under Tshisekedi.

Throughout 1993 the United States has continued to urge the various political forces in Zaire to continue negotiating, apparently believing that ongoing negotiations will eventually lead to a power-sharing compromise. It appears increasingly likely that the United States would accept a so-called "neutral administration" replacing both the Mobutu-appointed government and the Tshisekedi government.

Source: US Congress Library

Preventing Genocide in Liberia

Until the 1980's, Liberia's main divide was between indigenous people and the Americo-Liberians, descended from freed U.S. slaves. Mr. Doe's bloody coup ended the old elite's dominance. Power and patronage flowed instead to the Krahn. That favoritism, along with the regime's brutality and incompetence, sparked opposition from other ethnic groups, like the Gio and the Mano. One rebel leader, Prince Johnson, is from the Gio. His rival, Charles Taylor, is an Americo-Liberian.

The U.S. cannot be proud of its own early association with the Doe dictatorship. The Reagan Administration convinced itself that Mr. Doe could provide a strategic bulwark against Communist advance. It ignored abundant evidence of official misdeeds and popular discontent and made Liberia the largest per capita recipient of U.S. aid in sub-Saharan Africa. Congress finally cut back American support after 1985. When Mr. Doe's enemies began closing in on him earlier this year, the Bush Administration rightly resisted his pleas for help.

Instead, a peacekeeping force was raised from the 16-member Economic Community of West African States. With 5,000 Liberian civilians dead and 400,000 refugees streaming over the borders, neighboring states feared chaos. Yet the force's arrival last month touched off reprisals against foreigners and fears of a wider war.

Those concerns remain valid. President Doe's murder has not ended Liberia's ordeal. The prospect of ethnic genocide compels preventive action. From Sri Lanka to the Balkans, political opportunists have exploited ethnic rivalries in the quest for short-term advantage. Too often, their efforts have drowned their countries in blood. For taking risks to prevent the worst, West Africa's peacekeepers deserve the world's appreciation, and support.

Source: New York Times

South Africa Bans New Anti-Apartheid Group

The South African Government today banned a new church-led anti-apartheid movement headed by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu. The authorities also banned its first meeting, which was to have been held Sunday on a university campus near Cape Town. Several thousand people had been expected to attend.

A Government decree prohibits the committee from engaging in ''any activities whatsoever.'' Speaking 12 hours after the decree was published in the official Government newspaper, the archbishop announced that a prayer service would be held in St. George's Anglican Cathedral at the same time the banned meeting had been scheduled for Sunday afternoon. ''It is clear to us as it must be to everyone in the world that we are dealing here with a Government that is virtually totalitarian and determined to bludgeon God's people into submission,'' Archbishop Tutu said at a press conference.

Archbishop Stephen Naidoo, a Roman Catholic, said at the same conference that churches were now the only place where legal protest meetings could take place. The new movement, known as the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, was formed in Cape Town this week to continue the work of the United Democratic Front, the major anti-apartheid umbrella group, and 16 other groups effectively banned Feb. 24 from engaging in political activities.

Archbishop Tutu emphasized that the church service was not intended to replace the banned meeting and said there would be no attempt to form a new committee. But he added, ''We will get someone representing the community to speak.'' A nationwide crackdown on Feb. 24 effectively outlawed any organized anti-apartheid dissent except that expressed in places of worship.

Archbishop Tutu and the Reverend Allan A. Boesak, a patron of the United Democratic Front, were among 150 churchmen briefly arrested last month for protesting the bannings. Sunday is National Detainees Day, the day on which anti-apartheid groups usually organize meetings to pay respect to an estimated 25,000 people, about 10,000 of them children, who have been in detention without trial under a 21-month-old state of emergency. But the Detainees' Parents Support Committee, the group that organizes such protests, was banned last month along with 16 other anti-apartheid organizations and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the major black trade union federation. The union federation and three of the anti-apartheid groups restricted in the crackdown have begun legal proceedings to challenge it in the courts.

Four church services to be held in other centers to mark National Detainees Day were not banned today. The most prominent of these was to be held in Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto, the sprawling black urban complex outside Johannesburg. Archbishop Tutu asked today what more proof President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher needed before they realized that they were dealing with a Government that ''will tolerate no opposition to its evil and immoral policies.'' ''We refuse to be treated as a doormat for people to wipe their jackboots on,'' he said. ''We refuse to be manipulated into a position of oppression.''

Source: New York Times

Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987

President Reagan's remarks on East-West relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987.

For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, visit us at http://www.reaganfoundation.org

Source: Regan Foundation

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

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

U.S. FLYING ARMS TO SOMALIA AFTER ETHIOPIAN RAIDS

The State Department announced today that the United States had begun flying weapons and military equipment into Somalia to help that nation repel Ethiopian attacks across the border. No details were given, but Defense Department officials noted that Somalia had ordered air defense radar and antiaircraft weapons such as the Vulcan, which shoots rapidly at low-flying aircraft. A State Department spokesman, Rush Taylor, noting an announcement of the airlift by the Somali radio, said in a statement: ''I can confirm that the United States is airlifting military equipment to Somalia. This is in connection with the recent incursion by Ethiopians and Ethiopian-supported forces.'' As far as could be determined, the weapons and equipment were drawn from a $20 million foreign military sales credit under a security assistance agreement negotiated when Somalia granted the United States access to military bases there in 1980. A radio broadcast from Mogadishu, the Somali capital, said ''the Somali people are grateful for this appropriate response of arms needed to meet Ethiopian aggression,'' according to news dispatches from the region.

The President of Somalia, Mohamed Siad Barre, was also quoted as saying he had received a message from President Reagan expressing the ''hope that we will strengthen our cordial relations in the future.'' The Somali President was in Washington in March seeking an increase in military aid. The talks with President Reagan were said to have gone well, but no new agreements were reported. The Administration, however, has begun to emphasize military assistance to friendly governments to counter the expansion of Soviet military power. In this case, that policy has come into effect immediately because the Soviet Union, according to Defense Department intelligence, has 2,400 advisers in Ethiopia, while Cuba has 5,900 advisers and East Germany 550. The United States ground forces most recently in Somalia were engineering and medical units taking part in an exercise in November. Mechanized infantry units were sent into Egypt, Special Forces to the Sudan, and the marines to Oman in the same maneuvers.

Military assistance to Somalia, which began last year, has always been in dispute in Congress. Advocates have contended that such aid should be extended because that nation is strategically situated on the Horn of Africa with bases that would be useful to the United States Rapid Deployment Force if it had to defend Western oil sources around the Persian Gulf. Opponents have contended that the assistance should be denied because the Somali Government is autocratic and oppressive. A Defense Department publication says the security assistance is related to the agreement giving the United States access to Somali naval and air bases. It says, ''Such assistance will be limited to defensive materials and related training.'' The publication also says transportation, engineering and communications equipment, along with air defense, are Somalia's biggest military needs. ''There are no plans to provide Somalia with offensive equipment, suitable for use outside of Somali borders,'' it says.

Somalia split with the Soviet Union in 1977 when the Russians began supplying Ethiopia with arms and advisers. Ethiopia and Somalia have fought for several years, particularly over the Ogaden area, which is now controlled by Ethiopia but is populated largely by ethnic Somalis. The most recent flareup, according to dispatches from Somalia, started this month when Ethiopian troops and aircraft attacked Somalia on two fronts. Reports from the area said about 9,000 Ethiopian soldiers were involved. The aircraft were said to be Soviet-built MIG's.

Source: New York Times

KISSINGER URGES U.S. POST MIDEAST FORCE

Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger urged today that the United States enhance its military presence in the Middle East to counter growing Soviet activity there. Speaking at a news conference midway through what he has repeatedly termed a private visit to the area, Mr. Kissinger said that no regional leader could have confidence in a Rapid Deployment Force, as envisioned by President Carter, that remained in the United States without concrete facilities on the spot.

He also urged that West European and American policies on the Middle East be coordinated; he rejected recent European stands favoring Palestinian self-determination, or statehood, dismissing ''the theory that if we are going to get a Palestinian state, it would quickly or relatively quickly cause the problems in the Middle East to disappear.'' ''The vital interest of the United States and Europe cannot be separated,'' he said. ''Therefore, I consider it impossible that there can be two different approaches that are both correct.''

Although the former secretary has no official standing in the President-elect Ronald Reagan's administration, he is expected to brief Mr. Reagan and his staff and therefore is being received as an important figure. Traveling on the private jet of William S. Paley, chairman of the board of CBS Inc., Mr. Kissinger saw President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt last week in Cairo, flew to Somalia for a talk with President Mohammed Siad Barre and during two days in Israel met with a range of Government and opposition leaders, including Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, leader of the oppostion Labor Party, and former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan.

He toured East and West Jerusalem with Mayor Teddy Kollek and said the city should remain united but did not specify under whose sovereignty. He flew to the Etzion Airfield, the modern Israeli base in a slice of the Sinai that is to be returned to Egypt next year. That trip, with Israeli military officers, raised excited speculation in the Israeli press that he would recommend to Mr. Reagan that the United States use at least some of the base. But the former secretary appeared to dismiss the idea at his news conference by reporting his impression that Egypt would not allow it.

He did call for an American military role in the region, however. ''If you look at the map,'' he said, ''you see a large Soviet presence in Afghanistan, a large Soviet-supported presence in Ethiopia, Soviet-supported operations out of Libya, and I do not think that the leaders of this area who are concerned about this can visualize the concept of a Rapid Deployment Force that comes from the United States, 8,000 miles away, into what?'' He urged two steps: ''One is to put some visible American presence into this perimeter along the lines of the facilities that have already been negotiated by the Carter Administration, and they should now be given some concrete content. That would at least indicate that we are there, and that attacking key countries is not a matter in which the United States can be disinterested. Secondly, we require for our own country a strategic doctrine that enables us to be relevant to these crises, together with other interested countries.''

Source: New York Times