THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511230002
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
It is one thing to plead for aid to an impoverished Nicaragua, but quite another to misrepresent the facts about the causes of the ``poverty and disease,'' as alleged by Neal Herrick (``It's time to say we're sorry to Nicaragua,'' Another View, Nov. 9).
It was the communist Sandinistas who brought on the impoverishment when they stole the 1979 revolution from the Nicaraguan freedom fighters who had overthrown dictator Anastasia Somoza. The subsequent fighting between the communists and freedom fighters (called ``Contras'' and ``mercenaries'' by liberals, pro-communists and a hostile media) is what tore up the countryside.
Incidentally, it is ironic to say that ``facts are not an issue,'' as Mr. Herrick claims. Facts are the issue, and a few are certainly in order:
After the freedom fighters had helped force the collapse of Somoza's government on July 17, 1979, Cuban advisers poured into Nicaragua to organize a Marxist-Leninist government under the Sandinista Liberation Front of Nicaragua. Fidel Castro of Cuba and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua drew up their infamous ``72-hour document'' as a blueprint for their ``revolution without borders'' to spread communism throughout the Western Hemisphere. I have a copy.
President Reagan and the U.S. Congress provided some $170 million for arms and supplies for the freedom fighters, as compared to $1.8 billion to the communist Sandinistas from the U.S.S.R. and Cuba, whose objective was to establish a communist beachhead on the North American continent - a second Cuba in America's back yard.
During the 1980s, Ortega presided over a totalitarian regime using murder, torture and terrorism to control Nicaragua. Besides the U.S.S.R. and Cuba, he was backed by East Germany, Bulgaria and the deadliest terrorists of the Middle East - the PLO, Iran, Libya and Lebanon. The freedom fighters had President Reagan and, at times, a sympathetic U.S. Congress. They finally won in the 1990 elections, - a miscalculation by Ortega - and are today pursuing democracy in Nicaragua.
All these facts and many more are well-documented and were well-known in the 1980s. To blame America for the killing and poverty is unfair and grossly incorrect. As for Mr. Herrick's views about Nicaragua, let me paraphrase an adage: Everyone has a right to his opinions, but no one has a right to change the facts.
G. RUSSELL EVANS
Norfolk, Nov. 10, 1995 by CNB