Democrats Win Their Point, but Democracy Is the Loser in Denial of Aid to Contras

Sensing the twilight of the Reagan Administration, fully 80% of my Democratic House colleagues voted against the President and refused to renew aid to the Nicaraguan resistance.

Some did so without regard for the consequences of their action abroad; their goal was simply to deliver a domestic political defeat to the President.

But because of this vote the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives has dealt a very serious and potentially fatal blow to Central America’s democratic prospects. It is a blow that could ultimately damage our nation’s security.

The aid denial comes in the middle of the resistance’s first round of face-to-face cease-fire negotiations with the Sandinistas. The military successes of the resistance provided the leverage that made the Guatemala accords possible. Cutting off our support at this critical juncture shows many of our nation’s legislators to be very poor poker players. First we help the resistance win a place at the table; then we announce that we are dropping our support without seeking anything in return.

The House Democratic leadership has spoken in vague generalizations of proposing an alternative package in the weeks ahead. It is imperative that work on this package begin immediately. We have an obligation to support the Nicaraguan men and women who bravely resist Sandinista domination with their lives. It is an obligation rooted in our conscience as free men, in our responsibilities as neighbors and in our duty to our own dignity and security.

I will not be a party to any package that entails the abandoning of the resistance as an organized force capable of fighting for freedom so long as the Sandinistas do not comply fully in the democratization that they have promised. And until the needed U.S. government support is restored, I believe that all legal, private methods of aiding these forces must be explored. That, not surrender, is what the people want in both North and Central America.

Those closest to Nicaragua--the peoples of Central America--have consistently opposed the Sandinistas ever since they unveiled their communism. It is not known what the people of Nicaragua themselves have to say--the Sandinistas outlawed opinion polling long before the resistance became the force that it is today. But, after what the Democratic leadership told us about respecting the views of Central America, it is certainly curious that on Wednesday night the only ones celebrating were the Sandinistas in Managua.

The Democrats insist that the defeat of the Reagan package spells not abandonment of the resistance but brighter prospects for democracy in Nicaragua. Will the Democrats’ voices be heard when the inevitable crackdown on the disarmed opposition comes? Will they speak out--will they act--or will they avert their gaze and remain silent as happened 10 years ago when millions of boat people fled after we gave peace a chance in Vietnam? Perhaps the answer can be foreseen in where these voices have been to date on Sandinista compliance with the Guatemala accords’ democratization requirements. Democratization is not achieved with the reopening of La Prensa or the Catholic radio station, important steps that they are. The Democrats have been embarrassingly silent on the measures needed for progress toward true democracy--the separation of the Sandinista Liberation Front from the state and the national army, to name only the most obvious.

On a global level this vote raises the question of what signals we, as a nation, are sending to our adversaries and allies alike. Is this yet another sign of increasing American isolation from the world around us? What signals are the moujahedeen in Afghanistan to receive from this vote, just as a Soviet withdrawal from their homeland is being openly contemplated? What of Jonas Savimbi and the UNITA movement fighting the Marxist government of Angola? In this hemisphere, too, what messages are the democratic leaders of Latin America--many of them facing direct guerrilla or drug-trafficker threats to their own nations--to take from this?

The perception of a continued U.S. retreat will be a major setback for American influence and the democratic ideal. There have been no successful coups in Latin America during the eight years of the Reagan Administration. If the coup rumors do again begin to float, we must be clear as to why. It is this vote that, by fueling the worst fears of the region’s leaders, will be responsible for undermining elected democratic presidents in Central America and elsewhere. Democratic opponents of Contra aid said that we should put the Sandinistas to the test. Rather, it was Congress that was put to the test--and we failed.