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The Contras: R.I.P.?
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16416 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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5 / 1989 |
3,466 Words |
| Author
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William Lewis
William Lewis is professor of political science and
international affairs at George Washington University. He
specializes in UN peacekeeping matters and has published
widely in the subject field. He is also a senior fellow at the
National Defense University. |
The epitaph has not yet been drawn, but the heads of the five Central American governments who convened in El Salvador in mid-February made clear their desire to bury the Contra movement. Their communiqué, after two days of intense negotiations, agreed that the U.S.-financed freedom fighter force of 11,000 men should be disarmed, disbanded, and, for all purposes, dismembered. The quid pro quo for the burial of the Contras would be the introduction of democracy into Nicaragua.
The foreign ministers of the Central American "five" were presented with a 90-day deadline to draft a plan to implement the communiqué.
The deliberations of the Central American five--Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador, Jose Azcona of Honduras, Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua--and their proposals for "peace" in the region signaled that policy gravity was shifting away from the United States. This was reflected in the fact that Secretary of State James. A Baker III had met with the foreign ministers of Costa Rica and Honduras the previous week, but neither of them had alerted him to the impending change in Central American strategy. Furthermore, American friends in the region, such as Duarte, who himself faces Marxist guerrillas, endorsed the plan to disband guerillas fighting a leftist government in Nicaragua. While Washington was registering surprise, the pendulum of decision appeared to be swinging away from the "colossus of the north."
The Bush administration's feeble response has been attributed to the palsied transition that seems to characterize Washington at present. Most critically, the sensitive post
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