When I heard the news of the cease-fire between the Nicaraguan government and the U.S.-backed contras, and when I saw the pictures of Sandinista and contra officials standing side by side singing Nicaragua's national anthem, I couldn't help thinking of the Nicaraguan women I met there four years ago.
I thought of the women in Pantasma whose husbands and fathers had been killed in a brutal contra attack, and how they had cried and begged for peace. I remembered 7-year-old Consuela, with whom I had picked coffee in the lush hills surrounding Matagalpa.
And I wondered if these women were celebrating the cease-fire. Would they be preparing extra tortillas for a simple feast? Would they, too, be singing the songs of their beautiful country? Or would they be too war-weary to do anything but utter a special prayer of thanks before falling asleep to dream of a silent night without gunfire?
Then, as always happens when I think of these women, I wondered if they still were alive. Had they lived to see their country's first day of peace in six years, or were they among the 50,000 Nicaraguans who have died in the tragic, U.S.-sponsored war?
Many U.S. peace activists have expressed reservations about the cease-fire, and such mixed feelings are understandable. The Reagan administration had, after all, succeeded in forcing the Nicaraguan government to sit down at the bargaining table with a small, terrorist group that has very little popular support. And this fragile cease-fire had been bought with an awful and deadly price. Furthermore, even as this is written, the U.S.-managed contras threaten to scuttle the hard-won agreement. Still, there is much about the cease-fire for which to be thankful.
THE FIRST AND MOST fundamental achievement of the cease-fire is the preservation of life itself -- the greatest gift of peace. For the first time in six years, people in Nicaragua are not being killed every day. This is no minor accomplishment considering that an average of 15 people a day were killed in the war. Therefore, the cease-fire, which at this writing is only 29 days old, has already saved the lives of 435 men, women, and children.
But life is more than breath, and the casualties of the contra war also include innumerable persons with legs blown off by land mines, decimated families, destroyed houses, burned crops, shattered hopes, and unfulfilled dreams. Yet, because of the cease-fire, for the first time in six years, schools and health clinics are not being destroyed, and campesinos can work their fields and travel dusty roads without fear of being attacked by contras.
Because the death and destruction have finally stopped, the cease-fire also provides the opportunity for much-needed reconciliation and reparations. But it is unlikely that the current haggling and bickering between the Sandinistas and the contras will end anytime soon. The Reagan administration, specifically Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, continues to try to sabotage the peace process through CIA-orchestrated, anti-Sandinista demonstrations in Nicaragua, ever-changing contra demands, and other covert activities.
But we should not let this keep us from celebrating the amazing fact that the two sides are talking to each other at all. This alone represents a huge step toward lasting peace; whenever "enemies" sit down face to face and talk to one another as human beings, there is hope for transformation.
Yet political reconciliation is sure to be a long and difficult process, and war reparations should begin immediately. The cease-fire has already made it politically acceptable and practically feasible for the U.S. Congress to approve $17.7 million in aid for Nicaraguan children who have been wounded, orphaned, or otherwise victimized by the U.S.-financed war. And, however ironic such an aid package is, the significance of the first non-destructive U.S. aid to Nicaragua in eight years should not be overlooked. Now the U.S. government should continue its war reparations by reopening trade with Nicaragua and by providing aid to Nicaragua's war-ravaged economy.
Finally, the cease-fire represents a momentous victory of truth over deceit -- at least temporarily. Correspondingly, the cease-fire also represents a huge victory for the people of the United States and Nicaragua whose persistent truth-telling won out over the misinformation and outright lies propagated by the Reagan administration and the U.S. media. That the people of the United States, particularly the religious community, did not permit Ronald Reagan to satisfy his obsessive need to overthrow the Nicaraguan government made such a cease-fire possible.
THE THOUSANDS OF NORTH AMERICANS who have traveled to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace and other organizations discovered a reality far different from the Reagan administration rhetoric. They have carried what they have seen and heard to churches, union halls, campuses, and congressional offices. Lacking substantial financial resources and denied equal access to the media, the U.S. people nevertheless have made their message heard in speeches, letters, phone calls, and demonstrations.
As a result, the U.S. public never completely bought the Reagan administration's object lesson about a communist takeover of Central America. Despite the cooperation of the media and the Congress with the administration's folly, the majority of American people refused to accept the contras as freedom fighters. And while the rhetoric has not changed and the administration still controls the propaganda front, the cease-fire proves that, so far at least, the Reagan message has not taken root. The faithful truth-telling and persistent organizing of everyday people finally convinced enough members of Congress to stop the killing.
In that sense the cease-fire also represents the power of, and a victory for, the church. U.S. opposition to Reagan administration policies in Nicaragua is, largely, church-based opposition. Never before have U.S. Christians come together to work for peace and justice in such a way, and government officials from the State Department to the White House soon found themselves forced to reckon with the church. It is only fitting that the success of such a movement be noted in these pages.
For it is not only right, but also necessary, that North American Christians play a vital role in preserving the life and spirit of a revolution nurtured by our Nicaraguan sisters and brothers. They saw in the scriptures a God who cared for their suffering and a Savior whose very death and resurrection offered hope and promise for a better life. And while these Nicaraguans undoubtedly appreciate our organizing and other works of solidarity, they -- much better than we -- know and find hope in the incomparable power of prayer.
Vicki Kemper was news editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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