Stage is set for more contra aid

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Nicaragua's largest sugar mill nationalized Exactly one year after the Central American "peace plan" was signed in Esquipulas, Guatemala, the Reagan administration is once again asking Congress to approve increased aid to the Nicaraguan contras. At press time, most commentators expect that some form of "humanitarian" aid to the contras will be forthcoming.

While Nicaragua has been the only country in the region to abide by the terms of the plan drawn up by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, it has nonetheless come under vicious attack from the U.S. government and its junior partners in Central America for allegedly not moving quickly enough toward "democratization."

Oscar Arias, the supposed "1 peace dove," has been a central actor in this reactionary campaign. At every key juncture in the "peace process"-particularly during the weeks leading up to a vote on contra aid in the U.S. Congress-Arias has focussed his wrath on the Sandinista government, thereby providing the rationale for increased contra aid.

This time is no exception. At a meeting with top contra leader Alfredo Cesar in Costa Rica on July 24, Arias said: "Before it was the United States that was isolated. Now it is Nicaragua that is completely alone."

Echoing the demands of the U.S. government, Arias called on the Sandinistas to reopen all press outlets, grant amnesty for all ex-Somoza National Guardsmen, and hold "democratic" elections in which the contras could challenge the Sandinistas for political power.

Arias's remarks came one week after the Sandinistas expelled U.S. Ambassador Richard Melton, closed the right-wing newspaper La Prensa, jailed leaders of the CIA-financed internal opposition, and then proceeded to nationalize the country's largest private business, the San Antonio sugar mill.

The Sandinistas took these measures to counter the continuing U.S. destabilization drive against Nicaragua. The crackdown on the U.S. diplomatic corps and on the contras' internal front was in response to the launching of a public campaign, promoted by U.S. Ambassador Melton, for a "government of national salvation."

(The capitalist opposition forces in Nicaragua had previously called for 17 constitutional reforms aimed at providing them with unlimited space to mobilize against the revolution. The campaign for a "salvation government"-a call for an end to the Sandinista government-represents a new stage in their struggle to reverse the revolution.] "What government in the world would accept this kind of behavior? None. There is a war here, and for the opposition to be calling for insurrection is unacceptable," a Sandinista party member said of the call for the "salvation government" in an interview On July 13, the Sandinista government sent an important signal to Nicaragua's still-powerful agro-export capitalists when it decided to nationalize the San Antonio sugar mill, the country's largest private business. To quote Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, owners of businesses who sabotage economic production "don't have a place here in the mixed economy."

This bold decision represents an important step forward for the Nicaraguan Revolution. The San Antonio mill, and its tens of thousands of acres of land, is not just any business. For the past nine years, it has been "the symbol of the private sector in Nicaragua." During the peak of the harvest season, it employs over 5000 workers.

Ramiro Gurdian, the newly appointed head of the Democratic Coordinating Committee, the main anti-Sandinista coalition, put it this way: "Today they are sending a message to every private business, and that message is that if they can seize San Antonio, they can seize anything."

After refusing years to with The Christian Science (July 13, 1988)

"We are supposed to accept it to placate "But Congress is not the government here. We are a sovereign government."

The Reagan administration, in order to ensure bipartisan support for renewed contra aid, has also launched a major diplomatic campaign to "make Nicaragua respect the peace agreement." Its stated goal is to press the Nicaraguan government back to the negotiations table on terms demanded by the contras.

Talks between the contras and the Sandinistas broke down on June 9 after the contra negotiators, at the behest of the U.S. State Department, raised new last-minute demands designed to sabotage the talks.

heed the demands of the San Antonio workers, who repeatedly called for nationalization of the mill, the government decided to act. It did, however, offer to pay compensation to the mill's owners—a proposal many of the workers have strongly opposed.

Jaime Wheelock, minister of agriculture, said the owners had allowed the complex to deteriorate and production to fall because of a lack of investment. Leaders of the Sandinista Workers Federation (CST) said the Pellas family, the former owners, stopped investing in the complex after the 1979 revolution.

The sugar complex was totally bankrupt when the government finally took it over. Its sugar production had fallen to just over one-third of its 150,000-ton capacity. Its farm machinery and industrial plant had been totally neglected.

The decapitalization by the Pellas family of the San Antonio mill is typical of the behavior of the other large agricultural capitalists. Living under a revolution that has mobilized the workers and the peasants simply "does not offer a climate conducive to The Sandinista government had agreed to widespread political concessions-something Sandinista leaders said they would never do-but the contras and their U.S.

patrons wanted more. Specifically, they wanted an immediate implementation of their "democratization" program, not the gradual implementation proposed by the Sandinistas.

Secretary of State George Shultz is now slated to meet on Aug. 1 with the foreign ministers of four Central American nations.

On Aug. 9, he will meet with the presidents of these countries. Shultz hopes to line up the regional heads of state to condemn the Nicaraguan government for allegedly blocking a peaceful settlement in the region.

"All this may well breathe new life into the peace process," contra leader Alfredo Larry Boyd/Impact Visuals investment," these capitalists explain. Their goal is to restore such a "climate" —i.e., to overthrow the. Sandinista government and drive back the revolution.

The problem confronting the revolution, however, is that this capitalist sector still owns and controls a majority of the country's export crops. At a time when the country's economy is reeling under the effects of the U.S.contra war, maintaining a "mixed economy" that allows economic sabotage and decapitalization like that which occurred at San Antonio is a danger to the revolution.

This is precisely what more and more of Nicaragua's workers and peasants seem to be saying as well. At à recent "Face the People" assembly of rural workers in Matagalpa, speaker after speaker got up to demand the confiscation of lands that had been abandoned or underutilized by the large coffee growers.

The Sandinista government has heeded those workers at the San Antonio plant. There are many more whose voices need to be heard.—A.B. "Talks could easily resume during August."

Cesar went on to explain what the contra directorate would be demanding at the next round of talks, should they be resumed. He said:

"We are going to be insisting that the Sandinista army be separated from the party and become a national army; that the supreme court and electoral tribunal become independent, that there be unlimited freedom of expression, and that there be a real mixed economy, with guarantees for the private sector." (New York Times, July 25)

Cesar's intention is to reverse the gains of the Nicaraguan Revolution and to pave the way for a capitalist "normalization" of that country. For that purpose, the contras and their U.S. mentors must keep up a credible military threat. And that cannot occur without stepped-up aid from the U.S. Congress.

The war in Nicaragua is not over. Here in the United States, we must mobilize in the streets to protest contra aid and the U.S. war drive in Nicaragua. That is the most effective contribution we can make to the defense of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

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the [U.S.] Congress as it votes on contra aid," the Sandinista member continued.