easy). ee

Nicaragua brands U.S. charges ‘false’

“We find it very significant that U.S.
Presidential press secretary Larry
Speaks should make his false accusa-
“ons against the government of
Nicaragua at the same moment Ronald

€agan was re-elected,”’ Pastor Valle-

aray, Consul-General of Nicaragua
told the Tribune Nov. 7.
The Nicaraguan official was comment-

_ ing on U.S. charges that Soviet MiG-21

ghters were being received by Nicara-
8a, shipped aboard Soviet and Bulga-

] Tian vessels. The U.S. has repeatedly as-
__ Serted it will not permit such war material

| te the region. Similar U.S. charges in

© past have been categorically denied
Y Managua.

“We believe the timing of the U.S.

+ Charge is not accidental,” Valle-Garay

] spaanued. “We think it’s a deliberate.
_ Sort, in the wake of the Reagan victory,

to test U.S. public and world opinion in
_ Preparation for direct U.S. military
_ Intervention in Nicaragua.

: he Nicaraguan government denies,
as it did before, that any shipments of
1G-21s are on the way or have been

a received. Such claims by the U.S.
a administration are categorically false.

We have also learned that Larry

- Burns, an official of the Washington-

based Hemispheric Council announced:
Nov. 7 that the Commander of the 82nd
Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,

aS advised hospitals in the area to pre-

_ Pare for incoming wounded. It is the
_ Same thing that took place one year ago
_ 0 preparation for the U.S. invasion of

Tenada.
Our purpose in raising these matters

_ Publicly is to stop the madness of a U.S.
, MVasion of Nicaragua — to alert the

World and to prevent what would be the

, Massacre of our people by U.S. forces.

VALLE-GARAY: The White House sees
only a military victory against the
Sadinista government, a governmentthat
is now legally and democratically elect-
ed... we are alerting public opinion to
stop the madness of a U.S. invasion of

Nicaragua.

‘We know that Washington, following
the triumph of the Sandinista Party in the
Nov. 4 elections, has literally run out of
options — other than that of direct
intervention. The fact it has not yet oc-
curred isn’t because the U.S. doesn’t
want to intervene, but essentially be-
cause world public opinion has opposed
it.

‘‘ Another sign that the United States
has no intention to reach a peaceful
settlement of problems in the Central

Invasion danger grows

American region is its scuttling of the
Contadora process,”’
explained.

‘After publicly claiming their support
for the Contadora process and after
Nicaragua signed the agreement, the
U.S. set about to discredit the accords
and put pressure on other states not to
sign. Today Washington almost gloats
that the Contadora process has been
stopped.

‘‘The only solution, as seen from the
White House, is a military victory
against the Sandinista government, a
government that is now legally and
democratically-elected as well as to pur-
sue a military victory against the libera-
tion forces in El Salvador.

“The latest results from the Nov. 4
elections show that 81 per cent of regis-
tered voters cast their ballots. Of these
between 73-78 per cent voted for the
Sandinista Front. The balance were di-
vided among the other parties, including
the Liberal Independent Party whose
name remained on the ballot because
they withdrew their candidacy too late.

‘“*More than 400 independent foreign
observers on the spot praised the elec-
tion as a model of a democratic, free and
peaceful election.

“The situation for Nicaragua at this
moment is grave. We've conducted a
legitimate election. We have the right to
defend ourselves. We have the right to
purchase or obtain weapons for the de-
fence of our country. We are a free,
independent and legally elected demo-
cratic government.

‘‘We are not required to ask U.S.
permission on how to run our lives. And
if they invade Nicaragua they will pay

Valle-Garay

‘dearly. We are prepared to fight to the

very end.” eM:

CIA hand in
_ Nicaragua vote

Examples of interference by the
U.S. in Nicaragua’s election are
surfacing. According to U.S. press
reports, the going rate offered to
“opposition party”’ leaders to pull
out of the Nov. 4 vote was from
$100-200,000 in CIA money.

e Liberal Independent Party
leader Virgilo Godoy admitted he
did not withdraw until after spend-
ing four hours meeting with of-
ficials at the U.S. embassy in Man-
agua. Godoy pulled out less than
two weeks before voting day and
after accepting 1.5 million Nicara-
guan pesos, the sum allotted each
political party to run its campaign.

e Arturo Cruz who initially re-
turned to Nicaragua to lead opposi-
tion forces, decided not to run after
meetings in the White House with,
among others, U.S. Secretary of
State George Shultz.

e In May, 1984 a meeting took
place between Horacio Arguello
Carazo, a member of Nicaragua’s
Council of State, Adolfo Calero,
head of the Nicaraguan Demo-
cratic Force (largest contra group)
and CIA agents Steve Early and
Charles Raymond at Miami’s Holi-
day Inn.

The proposition offered Carazo
was that he defect and, at a press
conference to be arranged in Spain,
to denounce the coming elections
in his country as a fraud. In return
money was deposited for him in a
Miami Citibank account. Carazo,
unknown to the CIA, was a double
agent for Nicaraguan Intelligence.

Tom Morris

dence ee
econ
chi
; del Ld
st International Focus
stry Eases
ma It’s n t the si And of democracy? How
ie it 2 e128 many Globe readers can name
- A S the content \ one single candidate other eed
fac! There’s something sleazy Reaganor Mondale running for
nie eel the big media coverage _ U.S. presen oe ae
- 8 | Of Nic : ion Nov. _ can-name another p “ade
ea 4th. Se Ne desu ate in Canada other ae Hs : Big
. 2 39 . r
date For weeks, following the Three who received 99.9 pe
wine U.S. line, the Canadian media _ cent of the media coverage?
A as been writing off that coun- What percentage of election
stion! tty’s election as a fix. They space over Canada S Wigs
rakel? Point to the pull-out of some eight-week election did the
a “opposition parties’? and democratic Globe devote to
“oul! POoh-pooh in advance the fact the Communist | campaien
stall that the Sandinistas command which ran 50 candidates?
“jo i Majority support. Its logic for blacking out

Editorially, the Toronto
Globe & Mail condemns the
iCaraguan process as a failed
effort to ‘‘prove to the world”
that democracy lives in that
Country. By contrast, we are to
assume, it lives in Canada and
the U.S. where that very paper
(and most others) wildly pre-
Icted a Mulroney landslide in
September (all but one backed
© Tories) and a Reagan
Sweep Nov. 6.
_Presumably, had the San-
Inistas lost the election, the
lobe would go to bed satisfied
€ vote was ‘‘democratic’’.
© same line of logic then

*ays that if Mulroney lost (and
€agan) something would be

‘soul! | Wrong with our ‘democratic

Process”” because all the polls
Predicted their victory.

‘‘small parties’’ is that they're
small. Its logic for spending at
least half its space on “‘opposi-
tion parties’’ in Nicaragua 1s
that they oppose the revo-
lution. Being small doesn't
bother the Globe — or CBC

and other ‘‘democratic’’ news-

agencies in this case.

Stupid Globe editors aren t.
Consciously malicious, always
clear where their politics
stand, they are.

More ‘democracy’

on parade

Another aspect of the elu-
sive term ‘‘democratic”’: The
Reagan administration says
the Nov. 4 Nicaraguan elec-
‘tion, in which 81 per cent of
those eligible voted is not ac-

PHOTO — BARRICADA

ceptable to the White House.

Reagan’s electoral victory
two days later saw only 54 per
cent of eligible Americans turn
out to vote. Of these Reagan
polled 59 per cent to Mondale’s
41 per cent. That means
Reagan is president because
30.6 per cent of Americans of
voting age back him.

It’s surprising the Sandinista
government doesn’t call the
Nov. 6 U.S. vote a fraud and
demand a new vote. After all,
Reagan and his gang operly at-

Sadinista election workers
campaigning. The FSLN won
impressively in the country’s
first free vote.

tack not only the Nicaraguan
election, but Nicaragua itself
— all on the strehgth of 30.6
per cent of voting age
Americans.

None of this bothers our
watchdogs of democracy, the
mass media. All the votes we-
ren’t even counted Tuesday
night, the television sets were
still turned on across America
when the newly-coronated
White House told the world
ships were arriving in

‘Nicaragua from the USSR

and Bulgaria with MiG-21
jet fighters.

Washington ominously
warned this, too, is ‘“‘unac-
ceptable’’ to the USA. The

‘world’s top policeman, its top

arms dealer, its top nuclear
power, our defender-of-the-
faith, finds Nicaragua’s urge to
defend itself from armed at-
tacks ‘‘unacceptable’’.

It invites the Nicaraguan
people to commit collective
suicide by sitting still while
15,000 U.S.-armed contras cir-
cle like jackals. Reagan as-
sumes the right to okay
Nicaragua’s electoral process.
He takes unto himself the right
to strangle that country
economically proudly holding
his new mandate given him by
a mere 30.6 per cent of his vot-
ing public.

Let’s hear it once more for
democracy.

Good in the
midst of evil

As the world braces for four
more years of Reaganism, the
crystalization of right ideology
merged with economic and
military power, it should be
borne in mind there is another
America.

It is the decent, hard work-
ing, progressive America, a
people with a long, fighting
tradition. It’s the America re-
flected in these words written
by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
31 years ago to their children as
they awaited death at Sing
Sing:

“Your lives must teach you,
too, that good cannot really
flourish in the midst of evil; that
freedom and all things that go to
make up a truly satisfying and
worthwhile life must sometimes be
purchased very dearly. Be
comforted, then, that we were
serene and understood that civili-
zation had not yet progressed to
the point where life did not have to
be lost for the sake of life; and that
we were comforted in the sure
knowledge that others would
carry on after us.””

pes PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 14, 1984 e 9