Gunboats and Butter

His speech was smoother than butter, yet war was in his heart;
His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.
--Psalm 55:21

Words. They are of supreme importance to the man dubbed "The Great Communicator," strategic weapons in his campaign to control Central America. Words softer than oil are the grease that keeps the war machine running. When too much friction over presidential policy in Central America threatens to grind things to a halt, the slippery words are poured on thick, new wheels are put in motion, the pace is picked up. All the cogs fit into place--if we would simply believe the words.

He uses words to convince, cajole, and confuse, as if bombarding our ears will make us disbelieve what we see with our eyes and know in our hearts. We're defending democracy and freedom, he tells us, while the United States funds an anti-Nicaragua campaign based on covert action and deception. We seriously oppose the use of force by one neighbor against another in Central America, he warns, while our government builds airbases in Honduras and aggravates tensions between that nation and Nicaragua.

This is not Vietnam, he explains, while naming as head of his new Central America commission the man who gave us the invasions of Laos and Cambodia. We are not seeking a larger presence in the region, he asserts, while U.S. aircraft carriers steam toward the coast of Nicaragua for the largest joint land and sea training exercises in Central American history. This is not a war, he re minds us.

Ronald Reagan has backed himself into an awkward and difficult position. The dilemma is how to orchestrate a show of strength to raise the fears of the Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Soviets who, according to Reagan, are behind every movement for justice in the hemisphere; and at the same time allay the fears of the U.S. public, which opposes direct U.S. involvement in another Vietnam-style war.

The war of words, an extensive propaganda campaign in the United States against the Sandinistas governing Nicaragua, is just one component of the battle. Economic sanctions have been enacted, including a U.S. restriction on sugar imports and pressure from the United States on international banking agencies to deny loans to Nicaragua.

The covert war on the Nicaragua-Honduras border continues to grow. What began as a U. S.-backed commando force of 500 counterrevolutionaries, or contras, in December, 1981, has swelled to a "secret army" of 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers. The CIA proposes to expand the ranks to 15,000, which would make its activities in Central America the most extensive covert operations mounted by the United States since the Vietnam war.

Most blatant of the escalations are maneuvers involving U.S. and Honduran forces taking place off the coast of Nicaragua. The sea component of the exercises calls for 19 U.S. ships, including two aircraft carriers and a battle-ship, 140 warplanes, and 16,500 personnel. On land, training exercises involving as many as 4,000 U.S. troops will be staged in Honduras.

Plans for the maneuvers include mock bomb runs and practice of a naval quarantine around Nicaragua, as was used against Cuba during the missile crisis in 1962. If imposed, such a quarantine would stop, search, and turn back ships of designated nations.

The adjective "routine" is the word Reagan uses most often to explain these maneuvers to the public. But Michael Klare of the Institute for Policy Studies explained in a Pacific News Service report why these exercises are not routine. The usual procedure for military maneuvers is that they originate in the Department of Defense and are planned two to three years in advance. These plans were initiated by the White House, hastily diverting ships to Central America that were scheduled for deployment elsewhere. Pentagon officials as well as Congress were caught off guard by Reagan's announcement of the maneuvers, and U.S. ambassadors in Central America first read of them in news papers.

The maneuvers are projected to last at least six months, rather than the usual three to four weeks. No previous exercises have ever involved both coasts of Central America. And it is not normal policy to deploy U.S. troops in an active war zone, which is what the border area between Nicaragua and Honduras has effectively become.

Honduras, which has been so pumped full of U.S. military presence that some Hondurans are calling their country "fortress America," is the key to the maneuvers as well as the base of operations for the United States in its plan to engineer the downfall of the Sandinistas. From camps in Honduras, the U.S.-backed contras launch incursions into Nicaragua, spreading among the frontier villages a program of terror that includes rape, torture, and murder. With U.S. money, airstrips are being lengthened and radar systems installed. Construction will reportedly begin soon on a $150 million air and naval base on Honduras' Atlantic coast.

The justification for such posturing against Nicaragua has always been the interception of arms flowing from Nicaragua to guerrillas in El Salvador, though the argument seems to get thinner and thinner. The contra forces supposedly intercepting the arms have now surpassed in numbers the entire guerrilla force of 6,000 in El Salvador. A senior Pentagon official admitted that the contras have confiscated no weapons, and according to a July 30 New York Times report, government officials in both San Salvador and Washington agree that the flow of arms to the Salvadoran rebels has been a "trickle" for many months. When asked to comment on the situation, the White House refused.

The new buzzword for Reagan's strategy in Central America is "symmetry," a sort of Golden Rule in reverse that says the United States will do unto Nicaragua what it believes the Sandinistas are doing to the U.S.-backed government of El Salvador. Despite the recent reports on the arms flow, or lack of it, Reagan believes that U.S. support of the counterrevolutionary guerrillas attempting to overthrow Nicaragua is justified because of Sandinista support for the guerrillas attempting to overthrow El Salvador. By operating under a mentality remarkably like Reagan's disarmament strategy, which states that the United States should escalate until we force our opponents out of fear to the negotiating table, the Reagan escalations in Central America continue on track.

But these provocations threaten to undercut any hope for negotiations. The same week that U.S. Special Envoy to Central America Richard Stone was in Nicaragua and new overtures for peace were coming from Latin America, Reagan sent the USS Ranger on its way, the.first of the aircraft carriers to head for the Nicaraguan coast. Also that week a U.S. bipartisan commission on Central America was formed, headed by Henry Kissinger; with the mission of developing a long-term strategy for the region. Kissinger's history of diplomacy (see "Ambassador of Darkness," Page 5) and the absence of any voices of opposition to Reagan's policy make it doubtful that the commission will arrive at a palatable plan for Central America. But that fact seems almost irrelevant, as the U.S. course in Central America is already set on a military track.

In July, the "Contadora" group, composed of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, put forth a peace proposal and met with the foreign ministers of Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The group, named for the Panamanian island on which it held its first meeting in January, 1983, has received widespread international support for its peace efforts.

In his July 19 speech on the fourth anniversary of the Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua, junta leader Daniel Ortega proposed regional negotiations and a non-aggression pact with Honduras as a way of bringing peace to Central America. This proposal was hailed cautiously by the Reagan administration as "a positive step." Cuban leader Fidel Castro added his voice to those supporting negotiations.

Reagan's words continue to support negotiations, but his actions say war; and we all know, from a popular aphorism, which speaks louder. House Speaker Tip O'Neill stated that the nations of Latin America have shown their desire for a negotiated settlement in Central America, and that Nicaragua and Cuba "have extended the hand of peace down there." O'Neill continued that the United States "is the only one in the hemisphere that is out of step." That statement can also be made when the context is the globe, as even U.S. allies oppose Reagan's policy in Central America.

Reagan seems committed to beating back the hand of peace with a big stick. How far will he go?

General Gustavo Alvarez, commander of the Honduran armed forces, who with U.S. encouragement and backing is amassing growing military power in the region, said in an interview, "Everything you do to destroy a Marxist regime is moral," adding that the contras are "the cheapest and most just" means of resolving the Central American crisis.

It could be hoped that Alvarez does not speak for the Reagan administration. But history has shown that such military men and brutal dictators who share their philosophy are the "friends" we cultivate in places like Latin America.

When asked if he intends to send U.S. combat troops to Central America, Reagan has continued to state that he has no plans for such a deployment. But at his most recent press conference he quickly added that "a president should never say never," leaving some ambiguous room for the possibility.

For now, Reagan can rely on Honduran soldiers and Nicaraguan exiles to do his dirty work. With an election year approaching and widespread opposition in the United States to committing U.S. troops in the region, the war will likely not escalate that far, at least not before 1985.

But the groundwork is being laid for increasing U.S. involvement. When the maneuvers are over, an upgraded and permanent military infrastructure will be left in Honduras. Its ongoing purpose is to facilitate the rapid deployment of U.S. troops there if called for in the future.

Reagan faces opposition not only from the public and international allies, but also from the U.S. Congress. The House of Representatives debated the funding for the covert operations in a rare secret session, and on July 28 voted along party lines to cut off funding to the contras. Although it is unlikely that the Republican-controlled Senate will follow the House lead, and Reagan still holds veto power if it should, the vote was a strong rebuke for Reagan and his policy.

Reagan charged that a cutoff of aid to the contras would be "a very grave mistake" and could create "a giant headache down the road." But he seems not to see the giant heartache he has already created for those who are on the receiving end of his big stick. As he clubs his way through Central America, the deaths continue and the fear intensifies.

Reagan speaks words smoother than butter to people who have no bread. He and his conservative cohorts still refuse to acknowledge that it is the tremendous weight of decades of oppression at the hands of Central America's ruling elites that has stirred the people to work and fight for justice.

The people of Nicaragua have triumphed, and they are determined to keep their revolution. Their battle to rid themselves of the tyranny and brutality of the Somoza dynasty, which ruled them with U.S. support for four decades, was long and hard. They are willing to die to keep what they have won.

Tomas Borge, Nicaragua's minister of the interior, said in response to the U.S. posturing against his country: "Perhaps the gravest error is to believe that the force of arms is superior to the force of truth, or to the force of peoples who have conquered their liberty." That was our error in Vietnam. It will be our undoing in Nicaragua if we do not learn from history.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.