Nicaraguan People

Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, said there will be a "slow and steady" escalation of the war by U.S.-backed contras against Nicaragua's leftist government. Abrams, speaking on a U.S. Information Agency television link to Western Europe, predicted that one effect of the increased warfare "will be that the Nicaraguan people will rise up."

It was my great pleasure recently to travel to Nicaragua for the fourth time since the democratic elections of 1990 which freed the Nicaraguan people after 10 years of Marxist Sandinista rule. I returned to a hopeful and vibrant Nicaragua. I saw new businesses along the avenues of Managua. I saw people repairing and painting the insides and outside of their homes. I saw the streets being paved and new public facilities being built.

Dorfman's article was 99% misrepresentation, Communist propaganda and poppycock. The contras are not just former officers of Anastasio Somoza but a mixture of former Sandinistas, supporters of Somoza and more from other political groups. These democratic groups and the United States can make sure there is no blood bath. The Sandinista army is not a guerrilla army, but a regular army and its soldiers cannot put their helicopters and tanks in their knapsacks and march off to El Salvador.

Don't underestimate the significance of today's inauguration of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and her United Nicaraguan Opposition. For more than 40 years, the Sandinistas--and before them the Somozas--ruled that small, poor country seemingly as permanently as, well, a wall used to divide the two Berlins. No longer. Not that the passion is gone. Many will always believe that the Sandinistas are heroes for having dumped the brutal/corrupt Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

The victory of the UNO party and Chamorro is a victory for democracy. This comes from a 10-year supporter of the Sandinistas. This election must be seen as a tribute to the gains made by the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan people in the 10 years since toppling the tyrannical right-wing dictatorship of the Somozas. These elections occurred despite the bloody military pressure and economic war waged by the U.S. government. Now, one can only hope that truly free elections can one day be held in U.S.-supported countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, where political killings and disappearances are still commonplace.

Don't underestimate the significance of today's inauguration of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and her United Nicaraguan Opposition. For more than 40 years, the Sandinistas--and before them the Somozas--ruled that small, poor country seemingly as permanently as, well, a wall used to divide the two Berlins. No longer. Not that the passion is gone. Many will always believe that the Sandinistas are heroes for having dumped the brutal/corrupt Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

Change keeps on happening, and the winds of change wafted down to Central America and turned Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega into just another discredited Marxist leader with a salesman's tattered sample case of ideology and a history of failed economic promises. Nicaraguans discovered for themselves that his collectivist dogma just did not cut it at the dinner table. It did not deliver the goods. It went bankrupt years ago, and Sunday its shareholders voted for a whole new management team.

President Reagan renewed his commitment to the Nicaraguan insurgents Sunday, though he appeared to shift the focus of his Administration's policy away from the military situation to the need to restore democracy to the Central American country.

President Reagan notified Congress on Tuesday that he is sending $20 million in emergency military aid to Honduras to repel attacks by Nicaraguan government troops on camps and medical facilities housing Nicaraguan rebels. And in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, a government spokesman announced that the United States has helped fly Honduran soldiers to the border area to turn back the 1,500 Nicaraguan troops who invaded over the weekend. The degree of the U.S.

President Daniel Ortega said Wednesday that Sandinista troops have driven 2,000 Contras from key Nicaraguan bases into Honduras. He urged an international inspection of the embattled border to head off what he called the threat of U.S. military intervention. In his first detailed account of the 10-day Sandinista offensive, Ortega did not confirm or deny U.S. charges that Nicaraguan troops pursued the rebels across the Coco River into Honduras.

The victory of the UNO party and Chamorro is a victory for democracy. This comes from a 10-year supporter of the Sandinistas. This election must be seen as a tribute to the gains made by the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan people in the 10 years since toppling the tyrannical right-wing dictatorship of the Somozas. These elections occurred despite the bloody military pressure and economic war waged by the U.S. government. Now, one can only hope that truly free elections can one day be held in U.S.-supported countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, where political killings and disappearances are still commonplace.

Change keeps on happening, and the winds of change wafted down to Central America and turned Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega into just another discredited Marxist leader with a salesman's tattered sample case of ideology and a history of failed economic promises. Nicaraguans discovered for themselves that his collectivist dogma just did not cut it at the dinner table. It did not deliver the goods. It went bankrupt years ago, and Sunday its shareholders voted for a whole new management team.

President Daniel Ortega said Wednesday that Sandinista troops have driven 2,000 Contras from key Nicaraguan bases into Honduras. He urged an international inspection of the embattled border to head off what he called the threat of U.S. military intervention. In his first detailed account of the 10-day Sandinista offensive, Ortega did not confirm or deny U.S. charges that Nicaraguan troops pursued the rebels across the Coco River into Honduras.

President Reagan renewed his commitment to the Nicaraguan insurgents Sunday, though he appeared to shift the focus of his Administration's policy away from the military situation to the need to restore democracy to the Central American country.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, hoping to rescue the Administration's beleaguered Central American policy from the fallout of the Iran- contras scandal, said Thursday that U.S. support for the Nicaraguan rebels is based on strategic realities that transcend the illicit funding scheme. In a speech to the American Bar Assn.

For 3 hours and 45 minutes on Jan. 9 the Nicaraguan people were legally entitled to the rights that we take for granted. Despite harassment and the threat of persecution, they took advantage of the opportunity to demonstrate against the communist Sandinista regime. Thousands chanted and carried placards demanding "Democracy yes, communism no" and "We want food, we do not want weapons." The occasion was the signing of Nicaragua's new constitution.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, hoping to rescue the Administration's beleaguered Central American policy from the fallout of the Iran- contras scandal, said Thursday that U.S. support for the Nicaraguan rebels is based on strategic realities that transcend the illicit funding scheme. In a speech to the American Bar Assn.

When I became executive director of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, I expected that U.S. journalists and human-rights activists would rush to us in droves for information. As a labor lawyer in the anti-Somoza struggle and then as a legal adviser to Nicaragua's revolutionary junta just after the fall of the dictatorship, I had come to think that human rights were an urgent concern of U.S. foreign policy. I have learned since that this is not really so.

Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, said there will be a "slow and steady" escalation of the war by U.S.-backed contras against Nicaragua's leftist government. Abrams, speaking on a U.S. Information Agency television link to Western Europe, predicted that one effect of the increased warfare "will be that the Nicaraguan people will rise up."

President Reagan notified Congress on Tuesday that he is sending $20 million in emergency military aid to Honduras to repel attacks by Nicaraguan government troops on camps and medical facilities housing Nicaraguan rebels. And in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, a government spokesman announced that the United States has helped fly Honduran soldiers to the border area to turn back the 1,500 Nicaraguan troops who invaded over the weekend. The degree of the U.S.