Preparing to board a bus for the nine-hour trip to the Nicaragua-Honduras border, I suddenly realized that I was traveling with a unique and special group. I reflected that each of these 150 people must have said to themselves at some point, "I'm going into a war zone; I might not come back; I have to be ready to die." But they came anyway. That seemed re markable, especially for a group of mostly middle-class North Americans.
And what a diverse group we were: a high school student, a congressional staffer, several housewives, three Catholic priests and a large contingent of nuns, a number of Protestant pastors, a sprinkling of teachers and college professors, journalists from the United States, Japan, and Europe, a carpenter, a lawyer, some missionaries, and a peace organizer. We represented 31 states and at least as many back grounds. Our ages ranged from the teens to a dozen people in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s.
Frances Brand, a refined and cultured 82-year-old portrait painter from Charlottesville, Virginia, was among our number. "Brandy," as she likes to be called, is a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, served as an army liaison officer during World War II, and is active in St. Paul's Episcopal Church. What would prompt her to leave the safety of her home and her project of building a third gallery to house her paintings? Why would she ford streams and choke on dust to share the mortal danger of Nicaraguans under attack by CIA-backed counter revolutionaries?
"I love my country," she told me, "and I can't bear it when it does stupid and selfish things."
Stupid and selfish. I have found no better words to describe the U.S. role in Nicaragua. Stupid because our policy of backing for decades the corrupt and brutal Somozas created hatred for "Yankee imperialism" and prevented peaceful change, making the Sandinista revolution of the 1970s inevitable. Selfish because we thought only of our own interests, our economic gain, our control--never of the well-being of the Nicaraguan people.
U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933, battling against rising nationalism. In their last four years of occupation, the Marines fought against the guerrilla forces of Augusto Cesar Sandino, from whom the later Sandinistas took their name. Before leaving, the Marines created a local National Guard, which in 1936 installed its leader, Anastasio Somoza Garcia as dictator.
The Somoza dynasty ruled Nicaragua with an iron hand for the next 43 years, imprisoning, torturing, and otherwise crushing opposition. By the 1970s it controlled most of the industry and agricultural exports, owned one-fifth of the arable land plus the national shipping and airline companies, and amassed a fortune estimated at half a billion dollars. Meanwhile, half of Nicaraguans had an annual income of $90 and more than half couldn't read or write.
In 1972 a violent earthquake destroyed most of the capital city of Managua, killing 20,000 people and destroying 90 per cent of its commercial buildings. Somoza's misappropriation of the foreign aid sent to help rebuild the city and aid earthquake victims so enraged Nicaraguans that a united opposition formed. In 1978 five cities rose in armed insurrection, led by the Sandinistas. Christians and Marxists, poor and middle-class, fought side by side. In July, 1979, Somoza fled the country, the National Guard collapsed, and the new government took power.
Rather than working with the new government and helping it grow in democratic freedoms and social justice, the Reagan administration has cut off economic aid, applied severe economic sanctions, begun CIA funding of rebels on the Honduras-Nicaragua border, and allowed Nicaraguan exiles to train military troops in Florida camps. CIA-supplied and -trained National Guards men, operating from bases in Honduras, are now striking across the border into Nicaragua, killing soldiers and civilians alike. Nicaraguans refer to them as contras, or counterrevolutionaries. It boggles the mind and saddens the heart to realize that the rebel forces we are supporting are the same forces which dominated Nicaragua so brutally for 43 years.
In response to this U.S. policy, a group of 28 North Carolina religious leaders traveled to Nicaragua in April of this year. Not only did they find it immensely beneficial to see with their own eyes the reality of the Nicaraguan revolution, they also found that when they visited the border area, an expected contra attack didn't happen. "Apparently, by shortwave radio, it was announced that North Americans were in the area, and no attack came," reported team member Sister Marge Grabarek. Presumably the CIA-backed contras didn't want to risk injuring or killing North Americans.
This gave the North Carolina group an idea. What if more North Americans could come to see Nicaragua's reality and station themselves on the border? Mightn't they serve as an unarmed "human shield" that would reduce the violence and perhaps even stop the killing? Mightn't sharing the Nicaraguans' jeopardy be the best way for us to express penance for our country's past wrongs in Nicaragua, as well as to engage in nonviolent peacemaking? Would the Reagan administration dare to risk escalating attacks if the contra forces were in danger of killing U.S. citizens?
The "Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America" gained the cooperation of the at first skeptical Nicaraguan government and the sponsorship of CEPAD (Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development), a private, indigenous Nicaraguan agency that brings together 37 religious denominations for cooperation and social service projects. It then put out a call through religious, human rights, and peace groups for people who would join "Action for Peace in Nicaragua." Even though responding meant paying one's own way and potentially risking one's life, the call produced many more applicants than could be accommodated.
The final group of 150 arrived in Nicaragua on July 3 and set off on a near-frenzied schedule of meetings with church leaders, government representatives, and others who both strongly support and vociferously oppose the Sandinista revolution. We visited housing projects, talked to Miskito Indian leaders, attended rousing church services, and visited Christian base communities and a center for juvenile delinquents--all in all, trying to find out as much as we could in five days.
Although I was uncomfortable with some of the political tendencies and policies of the Sandinista government, I came away deeply impressed by the achievements of the revolution including massive land reform, extension of medical care throughout the country, attempts to assure adequate nutrition for all, reduction of illiteracy from 58 per cent to 12 per cent, and respect for religion and freedom of worship. The death penalty has been abolished, human rights are respected, the terror and torture of the Somoza days has been eliminated, and the prison system has received commendations from Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Considering that the Sandinista government is continually described as Marxist in our press, it was fascinating to meet so many Christians, both outside the government and in prominent government positions, who strongly support the revolution. Those in government say that they find it a Christian vocation to work for a government so committed to serving the poorest of the poor. And that 60 per cent of the economy is in private hands and 80 per cent of Nicaraguan land is privately owned rarely gets reported here in the United States.
The positive forces in Nicaragua deserve our nurture and support. I am convinced that the hostility of our government will only strengthen those forces in Nicaragua that tend toward ideological rigidity and military solutions.
"Action for Peace in Nicaragua" was an experiment in nonviolent interposition at the frontier. Early in the trip, a Nicaraguan bus driver asked me, "Are you going to the frontier town of Jalapa? I've been there. Boom! Boom! Mortars! 120mm weapons!"
A nun who worked in the Jalapa area said the contras had kidnapped 337 Nicaraguans from January to June, 1983, sometimes torturing and killing them. During a military briefing, an army captain told us that journalists had been ambushed, wounded, and killed on the dusty, winding, 70-kilo meter road we would be traveling from Ocotal to Jalapa. In another border town near Jalapa, he said, a mortar round exploded in a school yard, killing one child and destroying another's face. Several towns near Jalapa had been abandoned following contra attacks.
The captain said that the army would do its best to see that no contras were in the area, but they couldn't protect or survey all of the mountainous region on both sides of the 70-kilometer road. And it would not be wise to provide an armed escort, as that might be seen as provoking an attack.
As we made our journey, team leaders kept close track of everyone in their groups. When one of our buses got stuck fording a stream (the bridge had been blown up by contras), we hurried to throw rocks under the tires so we could keep moving.
But we arrived without incident in Jalapa and were welcomed by the local priest, a Protestant pastor, another army captain, and a Sandinista local government representative. All listened attentively as the minister read from Psalm 33: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in unity." "We are here in unity, Nicaraguans and Americans," he said. "You give us great hope."
Later, on the way through pouring rain to the Jalapa town hall, we were sobered by the sight of a military ambulance hurrying by, its red light flashing. In the middle of his welcoming speech, the Sandinista political director said: "Some people don't understand this revolution. I'll ask the people. Are we Christians?" "Yes!" the crowd roared. "Are we revolutionaries?" "Yes!" was the even louder response.
During a "Campesino Mass" at a nearby church, the songs, Bible readings, and homilies stressed Christian responsibility to work for social justice, to care about the poor, to build a better society for all. That night we slept on the floor of a school building and woke to the sound of guitarists from the church singing "The God of the Poor":
We give you glory,
God of the heavens, the frontier, and every place.
For the advances we've had in unity and society.
You have lightened the way of our freedom.
We gathered in the open air, Jalapa residents and North Americans, and opened the banners we had brought: "Your Freedom is Our Freedom," "No to Violence, Yes to Peace," "Alaskans Against U.S. Intervention," "We Pray for You and For Peace and Justice."
On a distant hill, we could see Nicaraguan soldiers silhouetted against the sky. Near the outdoor basketball court where we would hold our peace witness were long, deep trenches and air-raid shelters dug into the ground.
A weeping Nicaraguan mother told us that the contras had kidnapped her son, then decapitated him and cut him apart. "I could resign myself to his death," she mourned, "but they even deprived me of the ability to bury his body."
We prayed together for the world's martyrs, saying "Presente!" after each name, acknowledging the presence of the spirits of those who had died. A Nicaraguan woman prayed also for the contras: "They're mistaken people," she said, "but still God's children."
Later in our simple liturgy, a North American woman led us in a prayer of petition for pardon. "For our government's support for the Somoza dictator ship," she said. We responded, "Forgive us, and pray for us." "For the killings and kidnappings funded by our government." "Forgive us and pray for us."
I don't think that any of us expected what happened next. After about the third petition, we heard a murmured response from the lips of the poor campesinos gathered with us. At first, we couldn't hear what they were saying. But their voices rose, and then we heard: "Estan perdonados--You are pardoned, you are pardoned." Tears welled up in our eyes.
At the close of our service, under a bright blue sky we walked single-file, North Americans holding hands with Nicaraguans, out onto the corn field facing the frontier mountains, and stood for an hour of quiet prayer and reflection. A Nicaraguan mother told me that contras had fought throughout the surrounding mountains and that Jalapa people could almost always hear the sound of guns and mortars. But there were no attacks, or even the sound of fighting, that day.
At the end of our vigil the local priest gave us a gift of two Bibles. "The Bible speaks of peace and justice," he said. "The Bible was in prison, but here in Nicaragua it finally has been liberated."
Before returning to the United States, we determined to continue the peace witness. Nicaraguans with whom we talked were universally in favor of the idea. The plan is to have groups of five to 20 North Americans (other countries might also become involved) come to Nicaragua to live for a while on the frontier, to share the life and danger of the people, to live in their homes and work alongside them at tasks deter mined by the host community.
They will be available to go immediately to the scene of any acts of violence to witness for peace as they feel led and to collect information, take pictures, tape interviews with survivors, and report their findings to the project office. The project office will communicate this information to as wide a sector of the U.S. public as possible, but especially to churches, religious groups, and peace, human rights, and solidarity organizations.
For centuries people have sought a "moral equivalent to war." Might that equivalent be developing at the end of a dusty road in the mountains of Nicaragua?
Richard Taylor worked with Sojourners peace ministry when this article appeared.
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