Nicaragua Prepares for War

MANAGUA —  Nicaragua is getting ready for war.

That’s how simplistic the thinking of its political leaders has become. To the Sandinistas the question is not whether all-out war with the United States will break out, but when.

Evidence of this mind-set is clear to people outside the country when they read about Nicaragua’s 60,000-person army, the biggest in Central America, and the hundreds of Soviet tanks and other heavy-duty weapons in the Sandinista arsenal. But the gut-level certainty of it doesn’t hit until you are here, when almost every able-bodied young person you see is in uniform, when you talk to people who have already lost sons to the fighting between the army and the U.S.-backed contra rebels.

A visitor comes to Nicaragua prepared to discuss the chances for diplomacy and peace in Central America, and the prospects for more human rights and democracy for the Nicaraguan people. The Sandinistas aren’t much interested in such niceties any longer. They have more fundamental issues, like survival, on their mind.

The Sandinistas are true believers who want their revolution to continue after they are gone. Naturally, they would like to be around to see the fulfillment of what they began with the overthrow of the Somozas in 1979. But, taking a lesson from history, they have convinced themselves that for this to happen, they must fight the United States, and that many of them, and many Nicaraguans, will die in the process.

They have been led to this fatalistic vision by the simplistic thinking of another political leader, also a true believer, who happens to be President of the United States. Sandinista spokesmen say that Ronald Reagan’s true feelings about them and their country were there for all to see when he spoke on television April 22, urging Congress to approve $100 million in military aid to the contras.

“He compared us to Libya,” said deputy interior minister Omar Cabezas. “He is trying to link Nicaragua with Libya in the minds of the American people so he can do to us what he did to Libya.”

“How can he not do anything to us, after all that?” Cabezas added. “It’s become a point of honor with him. He must do something to us before he leaves office.”

That explains some of the Sandinista moves that strike Americans as downright dumb, like sending troops into neighboring Honduras, a U.S. ally, just as Congress is debating financial aid for the contras. Suggest to Cabezas and other Sandinistas that this looks provocative in Washington, and the consistent answer is, “Why should we care what you think? We have our own problems.”

That expectation of war is also why the Nicaraguan government continues to come down hard on the few remaining symbols of opposition to its rule, like the newspaper La Prensa and the Roman Catholic Church, whose radio station has been forced off the air.

“They violated government broadcast rules,” Cabezas said. “Not once or twice, but many times. And many times they were warned about it, and still persisted. We simply could not put up with that any longer in a time of national crisis.”

Cabezas is a thin, intense man. He is also the author of a book called “Fire in the Mountain,” which chronicles his experiences as an idealistic urban student who became a guerrilla fighter during the rebellion that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Watching Cabezas pace nervously in a stuffy government office on a humid night, a cynic might conclude that his expectation of a U.S. invasion is the romantic notion of a former guerrilla who has grown bored with the dull responsibilities of government.

But that does not account for the apparent unanimity with which Cabezas’ views are shared in Nicaragua.

It does not explain the opinions of a young soldier I met on the road to Matagalpa, a mountain town that is a center of Sandinista military activity against the contras. He was heading home on leave and said that he had been in the army for six years and was prepared to be in uniform a lot longer.

“Your Congress is useless,” he said with no bitterness. “They don’t debate whether attacking us is right or wrong, but how much aid to give our enemies.”

Then there was the cooly methodical briefing I got from Commandante Javier Carrion, the military commander in Matagalpa. He quickly summarized his campaign against the contras, then went on to outline the strategy being prepared for the anticipated U.S. invasion.

“We are doing two things at once,” he said. “We fight a counterinsurgency war while also preparing to fight a conventional invader. In the cities, along the Pacific Coast, we are training our armored forces, reserves and the militia to be the first line of defense against an invasion. But we cannot stand up very long against the kind of force the United States has. So here in the mountains, our special counterinsurgency troops will wage a prolonged war against the occupation troops.”

The purpose of this strategy, both Carrion and Cabezas said, will be to inflict as many casualties as possible on the U.S. forces, with the aim of wearing down U.S. public support for a war against Nicaragua.

Sad as it sounds, the strategy makes sense from a Nicaraguan perspective.

Of course, we in the United States can think of reasons why a war with Nicaragua is not inevitable. Congress might get its back up and say no to Reagan. Or the President might be discouraged by public revulsion against such a war. Negative public opinion might even cause bureaucratic resistance in the Pentagon, where military leaders remember the lessons of Vietnam better than Reagan does.

But it would be foolish for anybody in Nicaragua to count on those things happening. That is why the Sandinistas plan for war--and wait.