O U R   A M E R I C A

Havana.  February 15, 2007

NICARAGUA

A question of sovereignty

BY NIDIA DIAZ — Granma International staff writer —

NOBODY should be fooled. Washington still has the huge bone of Daniel Ortega’s victory in the November presidential elections stuck in its throat.

The return of the Sandinista movement could lead the empire to its old road of dirty war, perhaps camouflaged this time but with the identical purpose: to prevent Nicaragua from joining some of its Latin American neighbors and advancing along the road of nationalist, popular and revolutionary change.

It is not surprising that an urgent call has been made from the White House for the Central American country to continue its process of dismantling and destroying Soviet-made Sam-7 rockets, begun in 2004 by President Enrique Bolaños; if it doesn’t, its powerful neighbor would withdraw its monetary military aid, meager crumbs from the North to pay for servility and betrayal.

The Daniel Ortega government, in a communiqué from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed its right to keep the aforementioned missiles while warning that “no country can demand unilateral disarmament from another.”

The Nicaraguan country, autonomous and sovereign — the official press release says — does not need another country’s approval to determine “the appropriate means of defending and safeguarding its sovereignty.”

The transnational media corporations rapidly placed the issue in the headlines, saying that Managua’s response “constituted a clear defiance of George W. Bush,” and in that way, the big-business media is beginning to design a matrix of opinion so that when the moment comes, it can justify any escalation of hostility against the Central American nation.

It is not very credible, however, that the United States should suddenly be worried about the 1,051 Sam-7 rockets that were not destroyed when curiously, in 2005, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was satisfied by their secure storage in Nicaraguan Army warehouses.

An article titled “Rumsfeld satisfied with Sam-7 missiles,” published in the Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario, referred to an article published on the Pentagon website, written by Kathleen T. Rem, a member of the military’s press service, expressing U.S. agreement with the no-risk safekeeping of the armaments in question.

Now, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the U.S. government is brandishing its “concern” that the anti-aircraft rockets in question could fall into the hands of international terrorists.

Once again, the empire is showing the double standard it uses in approaches to the same subjects with different actors, and President Ortega, a past victim of such conduct, did not hesitate for an instant in stating that the disarmament that Washington is demanding from Nicaragua should be equally applied to other Central American countries like Honduras and Costa Rica, to cite just two cases, which have not moved to comply with peace agreements.

These agreements, signed from 1986 to 1987, established the principle of reasonable balance of forces, with a view to maintaining an equilibrium among the region’s armed forces, which is why – among other reasons – Nicaragua destroyed 1,000 Sam-7 rockets and considerably reduced its armed forces.

Honduras, however, maintains an Air Force acquired in the 1980s, when its territory served as a launching pad for actions against the Sandinista Revolution. More recently, the United States has sold it other airplanes that while in theory are for civilian use, are assigned to patrol the area for drug traffickers or supposed terrorists.

“If there were no military aviation in Central America, there would simply be no reason for us to have missiles here; but, given that there are, that obliges us to keep them, to defend the country in case an act of aggression were to occur,” the president noted.

Ortega recalled that, were a conflict to occur between the two countries, Honduran planes could attack Managua with all of their firepower in less than 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, it was learned that in Costa Rica, the so-called civilian police forces have been militarized to the max, participating in joint maneuvers with the U.S. Navy patrols, whose ships touch port in that nation, and could be used against neighboring Nicaragua. And this is not a question of susceptibility or suspicion. 

Nicaragua’s recent history has many examples that oblige it to maintain its defense capacity, even more so now that the Sandinista party has a new opportunity to take forward its program of social justice that was cut off by the U.S. government intervention and its financial and military support to the counterrevolution, created by the United States and used to destroy the Revolution.

Suffice to take a look at the press coverage of the time to recall the historic photo in which the young José Fernández Canales, of small stature, stands next to his prisoner, the tall, blonde Eugene Hasenfus of the United States. Hasenfus was taken prisoner on October 6, 1986, when the plane he was piloting to bring weapons to counterrevolutionaries who had entered Nicaragua was shot down.

The plane via which the mercenary had flown into the country countless times was the proof needed for even skeptics to realize that the war was one by the U.S. against Nicaragua, and that the former had dragged the governments of Honduras and El Salvador into it as well.

In addressing the National Assembly, where discussion on the issue began, President Ortega asked legislators not to approve destruction of the rockets, given that opposition forces in Parliament have said that they would vote in favor of eliminating 651 of the 1,051 Sam-7 rockets.

“Conduct yourselves with a sense of patriotism, because today they want the rockets destroyed, but tomorrow they will want us to destroy our tanks, and then our artillery and then they’ll want the Army to disappear,” the president said.

Imperialist logic is to have everything or to destroy everything.

Sufficient reason for justifying the principled position of the Sandinista government in approaching the Sam-7 rocket issue as an issue of sovereignty, self-determination, and defense of national integrity.

As this article was being written, the National Assembly’s leadership postponed discussion on the controversial theme for now, until there is a reasonable balance of forces in Central America.

Until then, there will be many pressures.

After 16 years of neoliberal governments at the service of Washington, the Nicaraguans have learned their lesson, as demonstrated by their choice at the ballot box, and they will fight tooth and nail to defend the return of the Sandinistas and their program of justice and social equality.