United States Foreign Policy Nicaragua

Proclaiming a new era of bipartisan foreign relations, the Bush Administration and Democratic congressional leaders Friday announced a new policy for promoting democracy in Nicaragua. Under the new policy, Secretary of State James A. Baker III told reporters, leaders of the Democratic majority in Congress agreed to provide the Administration with "flexibility" in choosing how to prod Nicaragua toward democracy.

For more than a century, politics here has been intertwined with events in Washington. Fortunes in Managua often depended on who was up and who was down in American government. And Nicaraguans routinely turned to their U.S. allies to resolve domestic problems. So last month's GOP sweep of Congress sent heads here spinning, and the likely return of far-right Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to a powerful position in foreign policy has become a matter of intense debate.

James A. Baker III won't take over as secretary of state until next week but the style of his new regime at the State Department is already becoming apparent. He has spent far more time on Capitol Hill than on Embassy Row, and almost as much time at the side of President-elect Bush as inside the State Department. For the moment, at least, grand questions of foreign policy are taking a back seat to immediate problems of politics and personnel. "Policy?

With elections scheduled for October in Peru, the Bush Administration has slightly relaxed its freeze on aid to the government of President Alberto Fujimori, a State Department official said Wednesday. Fujimori angered Washington and other Western Hemisphere governments April 12 when he suspended the Peruvian Congress, ousted the country's judges and suspended all political parties.

Panama's President Eric A. Delvalle on Friday criticized controversial measures that his government has taken against the political opposition in recent weeks, and said several of them were carried out without his advance knowledge. Delvalle said a raid by government agents on the Chamber of Commerce building this week was "totally unwarranted" and that he did not agree with the government-ordered closings of opposition media outlets.

With elections scheduled for October in Peru, the Bush Administration has slightly relaxed its freeze on aid to the government of President Alberto Fujimori, a State Department official said Wednesday. Fujimori angered Washington and other Western Hemisphere governments April 12 when he suspended the Peruvian Congress, ousted the country's judges and suspended all political parties.

For more than a century, politics here has been intertwined with events in Washington. Fortunes in Managua often depended on who was up and who was down in American government. And Nicaraguans routinely turned to their U.S. allies to resolve domestic problems. So last month's GOP sweep of Congress sent heads here spinning, and the likely return of far-right Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to a powerful position in foreign policy has become a matter of intense debate.

Nicaraguan soldiers deactivated two land mines along the path of about 70 U.S. citizens as they marched to the site where an American engineer was killed in a northern war zone, the government newspaper Barricada said. The march, to protest U.S. policy toward Nicaragua and the death of Benjamin E. Linder, an American engineer killed April 28 in a contra attack, ended Sunday in San Jose de Bocay, the paper said.

Retired Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, in his first major public appearance since being indicted in the Iran-Contra affair, declared Monday that the charges against him are "not a brand, they are a badge of honor" and complained that he has been "vilified" and subjected to "slander." Under scrutiny by congressional investigating committees and independent counsel Lawrence E.

Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, whom the Democrats will nominate here for vice president, said Tuesday that the Democratic strategy will be to use him in "the oil-producing states of California, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Colorado" in an effort to win the Sun Belt region that the Republicans have dominated in recent presidential elections. "Absolutely vulnerable, the Republicans are, in those areas," Bentsen said, his patrician tone suddenly taking on a harder edge.

When Secretary of State James A. Baker III visited Congress last week to lobby for the Bush Administration's policy toward Nicaragua, some of the toughest questions came not from liberal Democrats but from conservative Republicans. What happens, they wanted to know, if Nicaragua's leftist Sandinistas win next year's presidential election fair and square? "If it's a fair election, I guess we'd have to deal with them," Baker replied, according to several people who were present.

Administration officials publicly rebuked C. Boyden Gray Monday after the White House lawyer openly questioned the Contra-aid deal between President Bush and congressional leaders. The incident has emerged as a rare--and embarrassing--display of internal tension within a Bush White House staff faulted by some critics as inexperienced but which had won high marks for teamwork. "This was not Boyden's finest hour," said one senior White House aide. "Hopefully, we're back on the right track."

Proclaiming a new era of bipartisan foreign relations, the Bush Administration and Democratic congressional leaders Friday announced a new policy for promoting democracy in Nicaragua. Under the new policy, Secretary of State James A. Baker III told reporters, leaders of the Democratic majority in Congress agreed to provide the Administration with "flexibility" in choosing how to prod Nicaragua toward democracy.

Friday's bipartisan agreement on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua marks President Bush's first clear break with the foreign policy legacy of President Ronald Reagan, who made military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels his most fervent cause. For eight years, Reagan campaigned for the Contras, calling them "freedom fighters" battling a communist regime whose expansion threatened Mexico and even southern Texas. It was an issue, he said, of "right versus wrong." Now, that polarizing rhetoric is gone.

James A. Baker III won't take over as secretary of state until next week but the style of his new regime at the State Department is already becoming apparent. He has spent far more time on Capitol Hill than on Embassy Row, and almost as much time at the side of President-elect Bush as inside the State Department. For the moment, at least, grand questions of foreign policy are taking a back seat to immediate problems of politics and personnel. "Policy?

A blue-ribbon panel including two former Republican Cabinet members is urging President-elect Bush to abandon the goal of overthrowing Nicaragua's leftist regime and negotiate a U.S.-Nicaraguan security agreement instead. The Inter-American Dialogue, in a report scheduled for release today, declares that continued U.S. hostility toward the Sandinista regime "would condemn Central America to many more years of confrontation, destruction and despair."

Friday's bipartisan agreement on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua marks President Bush's first clear break with the foreign policy legacy of President Ronald Reagan, who made military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels his most fervent cause. For eight years, Reagan campaigned for the Contras, calling them "freedom fighters" battling a communist regime whose expansion threatened Mexico and even southern Texas. It was an issue, he said, of "right versus wrong." Now, that polarizing rhetoric is gone.

When Secretary of State James A. Baker III visited Congress last week to lobby for the Bush Administration's policy toward Nicaragua, some of the toughest questions came not from liberal Democrats but from conservative Republicans. What happens, they wanted to know, if Nicaragua's leftist Sandinistas win next year's presidential election fair and square? "If it's a fair election, I guess we'd have to deal with them," Baker replied, according to several people who were present.

In this mountain valley near the Nicaraguan border, thousands of idled Contra foot soldiers are training intensely for a war that may never be fully revived. Having withdrawn all but a token guerrilla force to camps in Honduras, the rebel movement is staring at many signs of defeat. Its civilian support network is collapsing across rural Nicaragua. Its U.S.-supplied ammunition is running low. Feuding among its leaders is running high.

In a move to revive U.S. influence in Central America and boost chances of new military aid for the Nicaraguan rebels, aides to President-elect George Bush are working on a new initiative in the area that may include direct talks between the United States and the Sandinistas for the first time in four years.