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From: baba@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Those Crates Again
Message-ID: <834@flairvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 05:06:36 EST
Article-I.D.: flairvax.834
Posted: Fri Nov 30 05:06:36 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 03:37:28 EST
References: <1078@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 40

> I would like to ask a question, Sevener.  Why is it that the Sandanistas
>do not say to the world and the US in particular, "Hey, let's sit down
>and talk about this.  No pre-conditions, let's just talk about our
>differences."  The Contra plan is so full of pre-conditions that it
>would take a King Solomon to unravel the strings.  If the Sandanistas
>truely wanted to live and let live, they would be glad to make some
>type of overture.  Alas, though, I feel they have other plans for
>Central America, and they don't look too healthy for the other nations
>in the region.  
>T. C. Wheeler

For someone who is in the process of accusing someone of not reading past
newspaper headlines, T.C. seems to have missed a few issues as well.
The Sandinistas have repeatedly and publicly requested such a dialogue,
(it even made the *headlines* once or twice), and in fact low level
discussions are presently (or were recently) taking place in Mexico.
The Reagan administration has refused to receive emissaries of the 
Sandinist government, and indeed the administration refused to accredit 
Nicaragua's ambassador to the US for several months on some pretty 
flimsy grounds, until the Sandinists recently withdrew the appointment 
of the provocative "revolutionary heroine" and replaced her with a more 
acceptable former law professor.  If there is a Contra plan, it is
known principally to the CIA ;-).  The *Contadora* plan, which was 
ultimately accepted by the Sandinistas, was then abandoned by the Reagan 
administration (in a piece of particularly sloppy diplomacy) because 
there were too *few* strings.

I don't trust Ortega and Borge at all.  The Sandinist revolution seems to
be taking the traditional Leninist lurch to the left, under the guidance
of a power hostile to the United States.  But you must consider that the
Sandinistas overthrew a monstrously corrupt dynastic regime installed and
maintained by the United States.  The US has *always* been the Enemy to
these people.  It probably doesn't take much in the way of Soviet or
Cuban whisperings to convince them that the US is going to make every
effort to destroy their revolution.  The clever thing to have done would
have been to discredit the Soviet/Cuban scenario.  The Reagan administration
would appear to be doing just the opposite.  It's just sad that the price of
bad statesmanship must so often be paid in innocent lives.

						Baba