Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site harvard.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!matthews
From: matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Important Vote
Message-ID: <489@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 16-Mar-85 14:54:18 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.489
Posted: Sat Mar 16 14:54:18 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 23:41:01 EST
References: <680@ihopb.UUCP>
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 26

> 
> A vote on releasing funds for military aid to the "contras" will be coming
> up shortly in Congress. The contras are the ex-Somocista national guardsmen
> who attack Nicaragua from bases in Honduras. 

	Wishful thinking, I'm afraid.  The issues in Nicaragua would be more
clear-cut if this was the case, but in fact only a small minority of the
contras have ties to the old national guard.  Men like Eden Pastora fought
the Samoza regime for decades, only to see his revolution co-opted by 
Marxists.  And that's why they are fighting in the jungles.
 
> The contras, despite massive funding by CIA covert aid and private right-wing
> groups in the US,.... 

	Again, this is a simplification.  The aid to the contras (some $40
million last year, the Administration is now asking for $14 mill.) has
been rather insignificant.  Immeadiately after the Sandinista victory in
1979, Jimmy Carter sent the new regime $75 million in economic aid.  In fact,
Carter gave the Sandinistas more money in one day than we had given to
Samoza in years, or that we have given the contras since.  But I didn't
hear you complaining of "massive" U.S. funding of a regime that has also
been implicated in rather brutal violations of human rights.

Jim Matthews
matthews@harvard