Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ubvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Important Vote
Message-ID: <134@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 14:27:53 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.134
Posted: Mon Mar 18 14:27:53 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Mar-85 02:16:18 EST
References: <680@ihopb.UUCP> <489@harvard.ARPA>
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 38

> > 
> > 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.

Just the leaders.  And the contras won't accept Eden Pastora because he
wants to kick out the national guardsmen from the leadership.  (Only a
small minority of Sandinistas are Marxist-Leninists, too.  :-))

> > 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.  Immediately 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.

That "aid" (I don't know how much) was in the form of a loan.  It was not
given away free.  It was also given under exceptional circumstances -- Somoza
had taken all of the money given him by the IMF and put it in Swiss banks.
I also recall that it was not sent in one lump -- that one installment went
out and the rest were withdrawn (but my memory is fuzzy on this).  Should the
US have said hooray to embezzlement instead?

Are we going to ask the contras to pay our aid back with interest once
they win their "revolution"?  What a waste of good money.

> Jim Matthews
> matthews@harvard
>  

Tony Wuersch