--in the mid-1970s, Nicaragua received the largest sum of U.S. economic aid of any Latin American country.
Aid was stepped up again following the 1972 earthquake that destroyed Managua. At Somoza's request, 600 marines were flown to Managua the next day to protect lives and property and stabilize the Somoza regime. The determination of successive administrations to keep Somoza in power is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that the U.S. government continues to violate its own laws in order to funnel aid to Somoza. Specifically, the 1974 Foreign Assistance Act prohibits aid to foreign police forces--but the National Guard is Nicaragua's police force. (It is also the army. But there is no real threat of foreign invasions; the only real threat is from the Nicaraguan masses.)
Aside from the massive infusions of economic and military aid, the U.S. has played a key role in the conception, implementation and operations of the Central American Defense Council (CONDECA). CONDECA, formally established in 1964, is a military pact between U.S.-supported right-wing Central American military dictatorships (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) for the purpose of preventing "communist subversion" in the region. CONDECA has direct links with the CIA, and is regularly advised by the Department of Defense via the U.S. Army Southern Command in Panama.
According to the CONDECA pact, troops from the different countries cross one another's borders when there appears to be a particularly strong threat of insurgency in one of the countries. November 1976 witnessed he presence of Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and, according to some reports, U.S. troops in Nicaragua. That operation resulted in the deaths in combat of two FSLN leaders. As recently as October 1977, U.S. military officials have been seen with National Guard patrols on counter-insurgency operations.
While Somoza has clearly served as Washington's puppet, he is also motivated by his own greed, which has resulted in the alienation of much of the bourgeoisie in recent years. In past years U.S. officials have had to intervene on the diplomatic level to overcome differences between the wealthy Conservatives, for years the only legal opposition party, and Somoza's National Liberal Party. The main U.S. concern has been for the bourgeoisie to present a united front against the Sandinistaled popular threat.
At present the State Department is again trying to mediate between Somoza and certain elements of the bourgeois opposition, and again the U.S. government is betraying the interests and aspirations of the Nicaraguan people. The people rise up in armed struggle precisely because they know that Somoza and the system of exploitation that he represents are their enemy and the principal obstacle to the possibility of any real democratic change in Nicaragua. Those most enthusiastic about negotiations are the business and financial sectors that have a vested interest in seeing certain aspects of the present social disorder preserved, while the people and their vanguard the FSLN know that the legal and economic structures must be totally overhauled if Nicaragua is to be able to use her abundant natural resources and national territory for her own development and thereby pull the country out of the poverty and oppression that have resulted from more than 40 years of imperialism and dictatorship.
In proposing itself as a mediator in the current war, the U.S. is trying to portray itself as a neutral third party. Clearly, this is far from the truth. As U.S. corporate interests dictate that whatever changes take place be not too radical, Washington will only advocate minor changes. But the people led by the FSLN will continue to fight until the entire National Guard is defeated and dismantled, and a new national army that really represents and protects the interests of the Nicaraguan people is formed. Until that day, Nicaragua will remain a tiny country caught in the clutches of U.S. imperialism.
Charles H. Roberts '79 is a member of the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, a Boston area organization.