Why did the Carter Administration line up with Castro’s Cuba, pro-Communist Panama, and the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to overthrow the elected, anti-Communist head of state in a friendly Central American country? Of all the stab-a-friend-in-the-back policies our State Department has pursued, that is the most blatant.
The evidence thtat the Sandinistas are financed, trained, armed, and directed by the Communists is incontrovertible. A CIA memorandum dated May 2, 1979, stated that Fidel Castro has been shipping weapons to the Marxist rebels in Panamanian Air Force planes.
At least two and probably three Cuban shipments included .50 caliber machine guns, Soviet AK 47 rifles, and hand-held mortars. They were flown first to Panama and then via Costa Rica to the Sandinistas. Hundreds of Nicaraguan rebels have been sent to Cuba for training via Panama.
Castro met personally in Cuba last March with the leaders of the guerrilla factions, promising them money, weapons, and ammunition. He also gave them what the CIA memo called “sophisticated” advice; he ordered the Sandinistas to disguise their Marxist doctrine and appear to form a coalition with non-Marxists. |
Colonel James C. Thomas, the Latin American expert in the office of the Secretary of Defense, testified before a House subcommittee that he saw almost daily Pentagon reports showing that Cuba, Panama, and Costa Rica were all implicated in the plot to overthrow Somoza. The American Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Narcotics uncovered a gun-running or gun-smuggling effort by Panamanian government employees.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance even admitted to the Organization of American States that “there is mounting evidence of involvement by Cuba and others in the internal problems of Nicaragua.” State Department spokesman Hodding Carter III added that “Cuba was heavily engaged in supplying arms and training instructors to guerrilla forces” in Nicaragua.
Congressman John M. Murphy (D-NY), chairman of the House Panama Canal Subcommittee, stated that “Cubans have been overheard on Sandinista radios directing rebel combat operations in Nicaragua. Intelligence reports clearly indicate that Cuban personnel have been changing credentials in Panama, substituting Panamanian credentials to mask their nationality.”
Congressman Murphy pointed out that hundreds of Sandinista weapons recovered on the battlefield by Somoza’s national guard are Cuban weapons, clearly identified because they were from a special shipment of Belgian manufacture. He also stated that Russian-built Ilyushin planes have been flying from Havana to Panama City, then to a Costa Rican airport just 20 miles south of the Nicaraguan border, loaded with arms for the guerrillas.
Murphy says that the Communist role in the Nicaraguan guerrilla warfare is part of a broad plan to achieve domination of the Caribbean and Latin America. In the plan to encircle the United States, Mexico is a prime target because of its immense oil, gas, and mineral resources.
Somoza echoed this with his warning on U.S. television news that, if we let the Communists take Nicaragua, in a few years the Reds will be at the Rio Grande. It is interesting that the Soviets have more than a hundred personnel in each of their embassies in Panama and Costa Rica.
The Carter Administration’s so-called “human rights” policy can’t make the slightest pretence of being consistent. No demand was ever made for the ouster of any Communist dictator, or of Idi Amin or Uganda, whose murders are estimated to run to more than 100,000, or Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Empire, whose atrocities include the murder of 100 children because they did not wear school uniforms.
During his running visit to South Korea this summer, President Carter said, “we believe in standing by our allies.” Like Taiwan? Like the Shah of Iran? Like Somoza of Nicaragua? All heads of state in anti-Communist countries friendly to the United States had better be praying they can outlast the Carter Administration.
