Nicaragua drifts towards new repressions

Press, 15 April 1980, Page 22

Nicaragua drifts towards new repressions

From the “Economist,” London

The- savage funeral of San Salvador’s assassinated Archbishop Romero early this. month was one ■/more' spurt, of smoke; from the political volcano of Central America. Ever, since / Nica;. ragua’s President Somoza -was driven . outof his; cotin- ‘ ; try by- a. motley army ‘ of guerrillas last year, it has seemed • clear that much- .of this region is liable to detonate in; violent change; the . rumblings are audible in Honduras and Guatemala as well as El Salvador. . -

' The only argumentis between- the optimists who believe. that the change ; can take more Or-less- democratic forms, -and 'the ; pessimists , who reckon that Central America is about to jump straight from a Right-wing . authoritarian past to a Leftwing totalitarian future, to '“go the Cuban way.” So what is’ the evidence from Nicaragua’s ' nine-month-old revolution?

Those who say that Nicaragua is going the democratic, not the Cuban, way point to the remarkable generosity extended by the. Sandinist victors of last year’s civil war to their atrocitysmeared opponents in Somoza’s national guard. They add that the Sandinists con-

tinue to tolerate both a (much reduced) private sec-tor-of, the economy, and an independent' liberal. newspaper/ “La Prehsa.” > - Abroad’, Nicaragua’s Government has. scrupulously te-. / fraihed;from,;helpirig Marxist insurgents efsewhere in Cen- : ' tral /.AmeriqaiiiAltiidugh the - engine/ .of :Sana.ihist .- rule — - its- hineunarii'directorate — has .'l a;. tmade-iri-Cuba -look abpbt'dt/Vthe five-man junta which is driven by the engine’ does include some social democrats;

Yet 10 months -after Fidel Castro’s victory Jn Cuba in 1959 there were still modern ates in the Cuban ment; political pluralism had not yet been completely suppressed; the show trials of non-communists had not yet' begun. Nicaragua’s early , revolutionary appetities seem much the same as Cuba’s, No sooner had the Sandini s ts, uncontrovetsially, swallowed General Somoza’shuge economic/empire (two/ thirds of the cultivated land and 200 companies) than they started nibbling at the edge of what wis left to private enterprise. The banks and foreign , trade went in August; insurance in October; mining in

November. This has made private investors understandably nervous, so that the country’s privately owned cotton fields are. going unplanted; and the Government is threatening to take them over next. ' ’ Simultaneously, the Sand- . inists seem quietly ’to be shelving plans to give. Nicaraguans .the .right .to- choose their Govemment. They . recently announced. that", they had delayed even. the. formation of their own political party, so as “not to weaken our energies during the reconstruction .period.”' ;; . In foreign policy, the Sandinists are in most matters Russia’s and Cuba’s faithful friends, although-they could not quite bring themselves to cheer on the invasion of Afghanistan (they .abstained in-the United Nations, vote). From Cuba have come about 1200 teachers (some -reportedly carrying not canes, but ; guns); and more than ■ 800 medical workers, and there are said? to. ?be ..Cuban • ib.cnnicians at Managua’s _ international • airijqrtyand . in ■ the television stations. Nicaragua’s largely pro-Govem-merit press has.become a toastmaster; for Cuban. virtues. ' ~„

It should come as no sur- v prise that Nicaragua’s heart ~ lies in Havana. The Interior? Minister, Commander Tomas/, Borge, who in his spare time . helps to run the police, the;' army and the Sandinist directorate, has long admired . Fidel Castro’s regime. But even Commander Borge has not come out definitively in favour of a Cuban-style future for Nicaragua — perhaps because he suspects that this might set back the cause of revolution -‘elsewhere in Central .America, and because he knows it would end the flow of Western aid to Nicaragua. The evidence from Nicaragua is still mixed, though it ■ seems to be tilting the wrong way. Is the hope of checking the slide towards becoming a Cuba a sufficient justification for the West’s policy of continuing to send aid to Nicaragua '(some S2OOM so -far)? For the moment, yes. ;■ .The money offers the Sandinists a chance to see that the pursuit of, reforms this side of. ’ institutionalised Leninism is compatible with enjoyment of the; benefits of continued Western trade and aid.

- There is still a chance that they will prefer not in inflict on their people the political straitjacket of a collectivist

system- and ’the economic frustrations of long-distance dependence on Russia. And after the devastation wrought by 1 General Somoza’s last stand, Nicaragua could use several more years of Western help. But there are limits to this policy of intelligent toleration. President Carter’s foreign policy is in too much trouble already for him to risk the- charge that he is subsidising the subversion of the region to the south of the United States. ; Western aid should stop if' Nicaragua moves past four

milestones -in the Cuban direction: those marking the end of the private sector; of freedom of speech, the press and political association; of the pledge to hold a free election; and the milestone marking the start of the “revolutionary terror” which Commander Borge has said may yet be-necessary against; “counter-revolutionaries.’’ If those things; happen, the West could'find itself paying (in the premature' complaint of one of the opponents, of Mr Carter’s: latest aid proposal) for a Cuban landing-stage on the: American continent.