The Making of a "Democratic" Opposition
Robinson, William I.
Just minutes after being nominated as FSLN presidential candidate for the February 25 elections, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra was asked if he would face his principal opponent,...
...For some this rain of dollars is sufficient proof that UNO deserves to be labeled "made in USA...
...To do so now would provoke divisions in the fledgling movement...
...EmVOLUME XXIII, NO...
...An October 10 investigative report in Barricada, the FSLN daily, cites Via Santa Teresa, 25 miles south of Managua: "Sandino will win the elections" 10 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS e! U Santa Teresa, 25 miles south of Managua: "Sandino will win the elections" bassy pressures on the centrist parties to join a united opposition were intense...
...Moreover, the best and brightest leaders had long since left the country...
...invasion, and had neglected the grassroots political VOLUME XXIII, NO...
...NED insisted that labor would play a strategic role, since the issue of economic hardship would be crucial to anti-Sandinista organizing...
...Since September 1988, a total of $12.5 million has been allocated by William I. Robinson is Washington correspondent for the Nicaragua News Agency (ANN) and co-author of David and Goliath: The U.S...
...He helped run the Institute for North-South Issues (INSI), an organization linked to the laundering of Oliver North's millions for the contras at the very time it was administering $493,000 in NED monies...
...intervention in the Hemisphere...
...Calling itself "VIa CIvica" (Civic Way), it quickly became known locally as "CIA CIvica...
...Building a Movement On August 4, 1988, NED officials met in Washington to map out "a more broad-ranging strategy...
...Eventually the Sandinistas caved in and allowed foreign campaign contributions, a practice prohibited in the United States and most other countries...
...IFES, one of the shadier of the NED-linked groups, has on its board a veritable Who's Who of contra strategists...
...Second Secretary David Nolan of the U.S...
...electoral politics...
...A few weeks later, after Congress had approved a special NED appropriation of $2 million for Nicaragua, Delphi International, a Washington-based firm which maintains large-scale contracts with the U.S...
...According to a summary of their conversation, they decided to instruct the opposition "to postpone any announcement of a presidential candidate...
...By August 1989 the rules had been "successfully negotiated...
...Ours is to get them back in...
...By August 1989 the rules had been "successfully negotiated...
...With Via Civica off the ground, the three components of what U.S...
...War against Nicaragua...
...Conceptually, this is a vital part of the democratic process...
...Next, NDI and NRI organized a series of seminars in Managua and abroad for key opposition figures...
...These funds were to be spent on paper, ink and new printing equipment, including a full color lab for campaign literature, as well as on the salaries of visiting Costa Rican journalists brought in quietly to "raise the professional level" of La Prensa staff...
...Whether this spending spree will pay off in political loyalties and votes remains to be seen...
...Representing some 40% of the eligible pool of voters, young people under 30 are perceived as an essential element for democratic change...
...FTUI's 1989 proposal budgeted $1 million "to mobilize workers and their families to fully participate in the electoral process" by "organizing 4,000 activists" to "mount an effective, nationwide effort to register workers and their families, and then see that they vote...
...foundations to use their influence and financial resources to fund Nicaragua's opposition...
...Under a section entitled "Other Activities Division of Labor," an internal NED report dated early June identifies three main "centers of activity" in the campaign: "One is the political parties grouped in UNO...
...By flooding the country with money at a time of severe economic hardship what one observer calls the "strategy of the gringo dollars' ' the United States is clearly going all out for an UNO victory at the po11s...
...With VIa CIvica off the ground, the three components of what U.S...
...Throughout the country UNO teams ran portable re- freshment stands from brand-new Toyota jeeps, causing quite a stir...
...Representing some 40% of the eligible pool of voters, young people under 30 are perceived as an essential element for democratic change...
...With an additional $150,000 approved by NED in 1989, Delphi set up an "Independent Radios Project" to equip opposition stations in Managua and around the country...
...Eventually the Sandinistas caved in Latin America...
...Another is the labor group in CPT...
...At Delphi, Quintero targeted Nicaraguan youth and women, using NED grants to set up, in early 1988, the Youth Education Center (CFOJ), a "civic youth organization...
...Next, NDI and NRI organized a series of seminars in Managua and abroad for key opposition figures...
...policy argue that its objective is non-partisan support for democratic institutions worldwide...
...They should "organize rallies and protests, [and oversee a] series of seminars and workshops tailored to train 'multipliers' to train and motivate their peers to participate...
...Almost all of this money has been spent, directly or indirectly, to bolster the UniOn Nacional Opositora (UNO), the main opposition coalition, and its presidential candidate, Violeta Chamorro...
...Follow-up talks were held with two other NED organizations: the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) of the AFL-CIO, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) of the U.S...
...Agency for International Development (U.S.AID), was hired to run a "Nicaraguan Independent Media Program...
...The project provided recording and transmission equipment to Radio Corporaci6n, run by the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), and to other stations linked to UNO, and paid for specialists from the United States Information Agency (USIA) to train programmers...
...Besides electoral legislation which requires all foreign donations be reported (and 50% turned over to the Electoral Council), all sizable international financial transactions must be registered with the National Bank and customs authorities...
...effort to transfer the anti-S andinista struggle from the military to the political arena, taking advantage of the electoral process to undermine the Revolution from within...
...Delphi's founder and Chairman, Paul Von Ward, is a former State Department official who served in several U.S...
...5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 7work that makes a party viable...
...In their strategy session Leonard and the NED personnel spoke of creating the formal coalition which would become UNO: "What should the procedure be to organize the opposition around a single candidate...
...News dispatches that day called it a "non-partisan grouping of notables...
...Rather than a political movement, "antiSandinista activity" had become a profitable enterprise to attract funds and attention from abroad...
...This allegedly was accomplished through Construcciones y Proyectos S.A...
...According to documentation made available during the Iran-contra hearings, board chairman F. Clifton White, also on the board of NRI, worked with CIA Director William Casey and other Agency specialists in designing a covert public relations campaign to aid the contras...
...IML relocated to Miami in 1979, and recently opened an office in San Jos6, Costa Rica...
...According to NDI and NRI project reports, their work inside Nicaragua in 1987-1988, financed with some $600,000 in NED grants, was intended to "provide training in how to formulate organizational strategy and tactical planning to the civic opposition...
...Through NED, the United States has become the de facto employer of thousands of Nicaraguans who are being paid to pursue U.S...
...Several constituencies were targeted for increased organizational efforts: labor, the media, business, women and youth...
...Almost all of this money has been spent, directly or indirectly, to bolster the Uni6n Nacional Opositora (UNO), the main opposition coalition, and its presidential candidate, Violeta Chamorro...
...Nonetheless, they lamented, "the various political parties which are included in the opposition have been unable or unwilling to forge an effective coalition due to personal or ideological rivalries...
...presence inside Nicaragua...
...But that support invariably goes to institutions and individuals closely identified with U.S...
...Via Civica's president, Carlos Quifi6nez, admitted that Sequiera was sent to San Jos6 to meet with Henry Quintero and IFES president Richard Sourdriette on August 1. On August 28 Quintero arrived in Managua and registered with immigration officials as a consultant for CYPSA...
...missions abroad as a "communications officer," a post often associated with intelligence-gathering activities...
...He was soon thereafter put in charge of administering $320,000 in NED monies for VIa CIvica...
...That year, Henry R. Quintero was put in charge of Nicaragua programs...
...He helped run the Institute for North-South Issues (INSI), an organization linked to the laundering of Oliver North's millions for the contras at the very time it was administering $493,000 in NED monies...
...Organized around NED are four core groups which represent different facets of the U.S...
...The upcoming MDI Conference July 7 might serve as an opportunity to clear up some of the difficulties and arrive at an agreed-upon division of labor among the three components...
...government sends to our country, so long as it is not aimed at healing the wounds it has inflicted on us, is immoral...
...Despite the diversity in political ideology and outlook," concluded an NED internal report, UNO, Via Civica, and CPT, "expect to function during the campaign as a single unit...
...Poverty and despair are evident everywhere...
...Equivalent spending by a foreign power in a U.S...
...This method of giving sophisticated training to top leadership and propelling a "multiplier effect" downward to the grassroots was also the game plan for the political parties, labor, and women...
...The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the U.S...
...S Vtflt'.UJA1...
...The civic group needs to be independent and nonpartisan, but it should also coordinate with the other two groups and avoid duplication of effort...
...Embassy in Managua announced its intention to "strengthen ties" and "gain increased influence" with the "civic opposition," long "neglected" by the Reagan Administration in favor of the contras...
...These, in turn, would oversee local organizers who would fan out into the country's high schools and recreation centers to enlist young people into the anti-Sandinista movement...
...The Sandinistas disagree...
...encouraging outside visitors and establishing a permanent U.S...
...The opposition was splintered into no fewer than 20 parties and political factions, and had spent much of its time and energy on internal bickering...
...UNO's Purchasing Power Voter registration took place during the last four Sundays of October...
...Although its charter defines it as "promoting democracy abroad," the NED 1985 annual report outlines its work as "planning, coordinating and implementing international political activities in support of U.S...
...War against Nicaragua...
...La Prensa, the opposition daily, received $150,000 from NED between 1983 and 1985...
...Henry Quintero admitted in an interview that IFES alone is paying 1,500 Via Civica volunteers a dollar a day, a comfortable wage in Managua...
...CYPSA president, Jer6nimo Sequiera, is a leader of both COSEP and Via Civica...
...The informal coalition called itself the "Group of 14...
...Later that month, the formation of the "civic group" was announced...
...It's difficult for some to resist...
...Most observers like to depict Nicaragua's election campaign as a contest between the governing Sandinista Front and the political parties of the opposition...
...The Gringo Dollars Proponents of U.S...
...The budget also featured such categories as $337,000 in "vacation pay," $525,000 for "political rallies and meetings," $600,000 to pay 20,000 "poll watch- ers," and $50,000 for international travel...
...policies and interests relative to national security...
...strategists faced an arduous task...
...According to notes taken there, the goal would be "unification of the opposition" followed by "definition of a political agenda...
...Finally, after an Embassy meeting in June, UNO was formally announced...
...The Centro de Asesoria Democritica (CAD), described in NED documents as "a multi-sectoral committee" headquartered in San Jos6, Costa Rica, was created as "a means of providing political support to the opposition" from the region...
...Henry Quintero admitted in an interview that IFES alone is paying 1,500 Via CIvica volunteers a dollar a day, a comfortable wage in Managua...
...In an internal report filed October 31, 1988, an NDI team sent to Managua remarked that "On the surface, the overall environment for change in Nicaragua appears to favor the opposition...
...Delphi received $22,000 from NED earmarked to consolidate the dominance of the Group exercised by the right-wing Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN) and to carry the unity process forward...
...funds may be distributed clandestinely, they are spent openly and liberally on sinecures for opposition activists...
...Our objective in Nicaragua is not to seek an electoral victory of one side or the other," claims NDI Executive Director Kenneth Wallock, "but to give support to the democratic political process so that an open and competitive system can develop...
...NDI and NRI had already brought most of the opposition parties together as the "Group of 14...
...Richard Stone, the conservative ex-Senator from Florida and a key player on Reagan's Central America team, serves as IFES treasurer...
...According to Delphi documentation, the strategy was to train a core group of national youth leaders from the political parties who would then select regional leaders...
...Immediately after the five Central American presidents signed the Esquipulas Accords-the so-called Arias Plan-in August 1987, the U.S...
...The Sandinistas are quick to point out that the United States has historically denied the Nicaraguan people their most fundamental human rights and democratic liberties, and thus has no moral authority to speak about democ- racy...
...According to Newsweek, the CIA is funneling an additional $5 million to the coalition for "housekeeping...
...Via Civica's youth wing is headed by Favor Avendano, another national leader of the Conservative Party, who also runs the Youth Education Center...
...encouraging outside visitors and establishing a permanent U.S...
...To do so now would provoke divisions in the fledgling movement...
...Building a Movement On August 4, 1988, NED officials met in Washington to map out "a more broad-ranging strategy...
...political and foreign policy structure...
...Since the Revolution, a grassroots participatory democracy in Nicaragua has embraced agrarian reform, women's equality, a highly successful literacy campaign, and autonomy for the nation's indigenous minorities, as well as broad popular participation in social and economic affairs...
...Since World War II, Quintero has worked as an intelligence analyst with the Pentagon, the State Department, and USIA...
...Another IFES official is Robert Walker, a former Reagan aide, personal friend of contra kingpin Adolfo Calero, and vicepresident of Coors beer, whose owner provided millions to the contras...
...Delphi's founder and Chairman, Paul Von Ward, is a former State Department official who served in several U.S...
...Each of these has come together fairly well, and there is a good working relationship between them....The third group is a civic group which has yet to solidify...
...Civil liberties and political rights restricted during the contra war have been restored since the Esquipulas Accords were signed...
...Although UNO spokespeople claimed the $5.67 million budget was their "wish list," a month later Congress approved $9 million, $5 million of which was earmarked for "noncampaign support' ' VIa CIvica, La Prensa, and the other non-party opposition groups...
...foreign policy objectives...
...CYPSA), a local subsidiary of Inversiones Martinez L6pez (IML), a firm founded in 1977 by one of Somoza's economics ministers...
...FTUI's 1989 proposal budgeted $1 million "to mobilize workers and their families to fully participate in the electoral process" by "organizing 4,000 activists" to "mount an effective, nationwide effort to register workers and their families, and then see that they vote...
...The group proclaimed that it would seek democracy "through ballots, not bullets...
...By 1988 Delphi had become the single largest recipient of NED Nicaragua funds...
...Throughout April, May and June, Washington applied an inordinate amount of public pressure on Managua to further modify the electoral regulations...
...Throughout the country UNO teams ran portable refreshment stands from brand-new Toyota jeeps, causing quite a stir...
...objectives in their country...
...Throughout April, May and June, Washington applied an inordinate amount of public pressure on Managua to further modify the electoral regulations...
...CYPSA president, Jeronimo Sequiera, is a leader of both COSEP and Via CIvica...
...organizing workshops on group dynamics, styles of leadership and hypothetical scenarios...
...The group proclaimed that it would seek democracy "through ballots, not bullets...
...It is ridiculous," charges Bayardo Arce of the Sandinista Directorate, "that a country which has inflicted $15 billion in damages on us, which has brought about 50,000 deaths, 16,000 orphans of war and 4,000 disap- peared, now comes offering tickets to North American democracy...
...UNO officials denied receiving any U.S...
...strategists faced an arduous task...
...These, in turn, would oversee local organizers who would fan out into the country's high schools and recreation centers to enlist young people into the anti-Sandinista movement...
...However, electoral law stipulated that 50% of donations be placed in a nonpartisan fund administered by the independent Supreme Electoral Council to defray the cost of the election...
...Just minutes after being nominated as FSLN presidential candidate for the February 25 elections, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra was asked if he would face his principal opponent, Violeta Barnos de Chamono, in a televised debate...
...Indeed, U.S...
...The document goes on to describe an elaborate network, stretching from a Managua headquarters all the way down to 10-member voter teams working in towns and villages...
...A few days later the State Department called upon "other governments, foreign political organiza- tions and private U.S...
...At Delphi, Quintero targeted Nicaraguan youth and women, using NED grants to set up, in early 1988, the Youth Education Center (CFOJ), a "civic youth organization...
...For years the internal opposition had hedged its bets on a contra victory or a U.S...
...Reagan's policy was to bring the political protagonists out of Nicaragua," explains one high-level Bush appointee in the State Department...
...According to senior NDI official Michael Stoddard, these were intended to "generate international support and attention for the opposition leaders, put the Sandinistas on notice, and explore the possibilities for the civic opposition to take major advantage of the Esquipulas opening...
...Immediately after the five Central American presidents signed the Esquipulas Accords the so-called Arias Plan in August 1987, the U.S...
...effort to transfer the anti-Sandinista struggle from the military to the political arena, taking advantage of the electoral process to undermine the Revolution from within...
...5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 9bassy pressures on the centrist parties to join a united opposition were intense...
...strategists refer to as the "civic opposition front" were in place...
...Mirroring the disarray of the political parties, opposition trade unions were divided into no fewer than six factions...
...Focusingon labor is the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), a wing of the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), which bolsters pro-U.S...
...At the same time, the Bush Administration suspended Radio Liberaci6n, the contra station in Honduras established by USIA, and instead set up Radio Democracia inside Nicaragua to promote UNO...
...The Gringo Dollars Proponents of U.S...
...Through CUS which FTUI's parent organization, the American Institute for Free Labor Development, has supported since Somoza's time ETUI sponsored several trade union seminars in Managua later that year which led to the formation of an umbrella organization, the Permanent Congress of Workers (CPT...
...By flooding the country with money at a time of severe economic hardship-what one observer calls the "strategy of the gringo dollars'--the United States is clearly going all out for an UNO victory at the polls...
...Indeed, U.S...
...It is ridiculous," charges Bayardo Arce of the Sandinista Directorate, "that a country which has inflicted $15 billion in damages on us, which has brought about 50,000 deaths, 16,000 orphans of war and 4,000 disappeared, now comes offering tickets to North American democracy...
...Despite the documented flow of millions of dollars, until December 20 the opposition did not report so much as a single financial transaction related to the electoral process...
...Yet all ten members of the group's national executive committee are opposition militants: Three are top members of UNO, five are leaders of COSEP or its affiliates, and two are from the CPT unions...
...Such vehicles had hardly been seen since the United States trade embargo was imposed in 1985...
...Taboada is also one of the leaders of a "mothers of political prisoners group...
...Through NED, the United States has become the de facto employer of thousands of Nicaraguans who are being paid to pursue U.S...
...In an internal report filed October 31, 1988, an ND...
...Any aid that the U.S...
...The Making of UNO In April 1989, when the electoral process formally opened, NED personnel met in Managua with John Leonard, U.S...
...Embassy in Managua held a series of meetings with the Workers Confederation of Nicaragua (CTN) and the Federation of Labor Unity (CUS) in the spring of 1988, urging them to work at unifying the unions under a single banner...
...Such a group could undertake certain non-partisan activities, such as human rights monitoring, a parallel count, non-partisan voter registration, education and other tasks...
...For some this rain of dollars is sufficient proof that UNO deserves to be labeled "made in USA...
...There is a good deal of evidence to support this assertion...
...The document goes on to describe an elaborate network, stretching from a Managua headquarters all the way down to 10-member voter teams working in towns and villages...
...According to Newsweek, the CIA is funneling an additional $5 million to the coalition for "housekeeping...
...It's difficult for some to resist...
...The original UNO campaign budget for September to February set aside $1.24 million in "salaries" for UNO campaign personnel, including $2,000 a month for the national campaign manager, $1,000 for administrators and publicity directors, and $500 for each of 16 "campaign representatives" and 16 regional administrators...
...Such seminars succeeded in bringing together top and middle-level leaders from 14 opposition parties and factions, including those of the right-wing Ramiro Sacasa Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN), several centrist Acronyms U.S...
...While U.S...
...Yet funding is but one element of what appears to be a massive U.S...
...UNO activists were out in force, handing out thousands of sandwiches, cups of coffee and glasses of kool-aid at registration sites in the capital...
...electoral politics...
...Participants spoke of creating lines of vertical command...
...election would total $2 billion...
...UNO's Purchasing Power Voter registration took place during the last four Sundays of October...
...News dispatches that day called it a "non-partisan grouping of notables...
...The opposition was splintered into no fewer than 20 parties and political factions, and had spent much of its time and energy on internal bickering...
...Nicaraguans joke about how Somoza used to buy elections at 50 cents a head...
...Whether this spending spree will pay off in political loyalties and votes remains to be seen...
...A few days later the State Department called upon "other governments, foreign political organizations and private U.S...
...Taboada is also one of the leaders of a "mothers of political prisoners group,' which, according to an NED report, received $22,000 in 1988...
...The Sandinistas disagree...
...Meanwhile, Barricada reported the complaints of high school students in the capital that activists from the Youth Education Center were giving out free UNO T-shirts and offering students 20,000 cordobas, the equivalent of several days wages at the time, to enlist with UNO...
...Under a section entitled "Other Activities-Division of Labor," an internal NED report dated early June identifies three main "centers of activity" in the campaign: "One is the political parties grouped in UNO...
...The Delphi document summarizing the "women's project" is even more candid: "Nicaraguan women have begun to recognize their shared responsibility in rebuilding the political, social and economic life of the country" and "the decisive role they must play...
...According to an internal report of the National Democratic Institute (ND...
...Nonetheless, they lamented, "the various political parties which are included in the opposition have been unable or unwilling to forge an effective coalition due to personal or ideological rivalries...
...The project provided recording and transmission equipment to Radio Corporacion, run by the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), and to other stations linked to UNO, and paid for specialists from the United States Information Agency (USIA) to train programmers...
...Second Secretary David Nolan of the U.S...
...and its Republican counterpart, the National Republican Institute (NRI), met soon thereafter in Washington with opposition party representatives, and traveled to Caracas, Panama City,and Managua to hold exploratory talks with civic opposition leaders...
...With the 1988 NED allocation, Delphi increased La Prensa's subsidy to just under $1 million for the period up to the elections...
...Another IFES official is Robert Walker, a former Reagan aide, personal friend of contra kingpin Adolfo Calero, and vicepresident of Coors beer, whose owner provided millions to the contras...
...Finally, after an Embassy meeting in June, UNO was formally announced...
...chargé d'affaires, to plan strategy...
...In 1986 Delphi took over NED's funding and support of the paper and, for the next two years, continued investing at similar levels...
...He was soon thereafter put in charge of administering $320,000 in NED monies for Via Civica...
...Moreover, the best and brightest leaders had long since left the country...
...government agencies...
...Each of these has come together fairly well, and there is a good working relationship between them....The third group is a civic group which has yet to solidify...
...Such seminars succeeded in bringing together top and middle-level leaders from 14 opposition parties and factions, including those of the right-wing Ramiro Sacasa Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN), several centrist Acronyms U.S...
...election would total $2 billion...
...strategists refer to as the "civic opposition front" were in place...
...On July 7, NDI organizers landed in Managua...
...Since World War II, Quintero has worked as an intelligence analyst with the Pentagon, the State Department, and USIA...
...That year, Henry R. Quintero was put in charge of Nicaragua programs...
...5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 20,000 cordobas, the equivalent of several days wages at the time, to enlist with UNO...
...But that support invariably goes to institutions and individuals closely identified with U.S...
...Embassy in Managua announced its intention to "strengthen ties" and "gain increased influence" with the "civic opposition," long "neglected" by the Reagan Administration in favor of the contras...
...With an additional $150,000 approved by NED in 1989, Delphi set up an "Independent Radios Project" to equip opposition stations in Managua and around the country...
...VIa CIvica's youth wing is headed by Favor Avendano, another national leader of the Conservative Party, who also runs the Youth Education Center...
...It is a standard organizing procedure detailed in the political operations manuals of the CIA, U.S.AID and other U.S...
...AAILI, 1NJ...
...Another is the labor group in CPT...
...Conceptually, this is a vital part of the democratic process...
...efforts would be "designed around three core themes: party planning and organizational strategies, constituency building, and coalition formation...
...NED has been most active in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Poland, South Africa, Chile and the Philippines...
...For many, these scenes recalled Somoza's "nacatamale y guaro" elections, in which peasants were trucked to voting stations and given a traditional corn-meal tamale and a drink of liquor as they were escorted to the ballot boxes...
...An October 10 investigative report inBarricada, the FSLN daily, cites Via REPORT ON THE AMERICAS I - 10CIvica sources who claim that IFES laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars for UNO...
...in this campaign the United States will spend more than $10 per voter...
...They've distributed lots of cash," observed one top-level centrist interviewed in April...
...Poverty and despair are evident everywhere...
...Since the Revolution, a grassroots participatory democracy in Nicaragua has embraced agrarian reform, women's equality, a highly successful literacy cam- paign, and autonomy for the nation's indigenous minorities, as well as broad popular participation in social and economic affairs...
...The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the National Republican Institute (NRI), the international affairs departments of the two major parties, work with political parties...
...Despite the documented flow of millions of dollars, until December 20 the opposition did not report so much as a single financial transaction related to the electoral process...
...A few weeks later, after Congress had approved a special NED appropriation of $2 million for Nicaragua, Delphi International, a Washington-based firm which maintains large-scale contracts with the U.S...
...FTUI received slightly under $2 million from NED through February 1989, including $477,522 slated specifically for "labor unity" and "international solidarity" with opposition unions...
...presence inside Nicaragua...
...intervention in the Hemisphere...
...Some organizations have been set up as mere conduits for specific NED operations, such as the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), established last year "to support free elections" in Nicaragua, and the Sim6n Bolivar Foundation, founded in June, whose principals include former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams and former National Security Adviser Richard Allen...
...Although the rhetoric of democracy has a certain appeal, such activities surely constitute gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation-a "modem" method of continuing the sorry history of U.S...
...They have received NED funds to underwrite speaking tours in the United States for leaders of the contras and Nicaragua's internal opposition, to support the opposition's Permanent Commission on Human Rights, and to publish anti-Sandinista literature in neighboring Central American countries...
...The informal coalition called itself the "Group of 14...
...More than one reporter was taken aback when Ortega declared he would like to challenge his "campaign opponent, George Bush," to a live debate at "opposition headquarters in Washington, D.C...
...It should include as many parties as possible, COSEP and the labor movement, women and youth...
...The above-ground nature of NED activities provides an important tactical alternative to clandestine CIA intervention...
...The CDN would form the core...
...Meanwhile, the Free Trade Union Institute focused on organized labor...
...There is a good deal of evidence to support this assertion...
...EmVOLUME XXIII...
...Later that month, representatives of the Group of 14 were brought to Washington for intensive consultations with the State Department, Congress and NED...
...Ours is to get them back in.,' According to NDI and NRI project reports, their work inside Nicaragua in 1987-1988, financed with some $600,000 in NED grants, was intended to "provide training in how to formulate organizational strategy and tactical planning to the civic opposition...
...Reagan's policy was to bring the political protago- nists out of Nicaragua," explains one high-level Bush appointee in the State Department...
...Equivalent spending by a foreign power in a U.S...
...For years the internal opposition had hedged its bets on a contra victory or a U.S...
...It is a standard organizing procedure detailed in the political operations manuals of the CIA, U.S.AID and other U.S...
...UNO activists were out in force, handing out thousands of sandwiches, cups of coffee and glasses of kool-aid at registration sites in the capital...
...missions abroad as a "communications officer," a post often associated with intelligence-gathering activities...
...ETUI received slightly under $2 million from NED through February 1989, including $477,522 slated specifically for "labor unity" and "international solidarity" with opposition unions...
...foundations to use their influence and financial resources to fund Nicaragua's opposition...
...IML relocated to Miami in 1979, and recently opened an office in San José, Costa Rica...
...These activists, the proposal noted, "need to be motivated and trained for their roles: Supervision and direction of The Democracy Network The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was set up by the Reagan Administration in 1983 to bolster U.S...
...The economy is in shambles...
...Agency for International Development Nicaraguan Opposition Organizations: UNO: National Opposition Union (party coalition) CDN: Democratic Coordinating Committee COSEP: Superior Council of Private Enterprise CTh: Workers Confederation of Nicaragua CUS: Federation of Labor Unity CPT: Permanent Congress of Workers (labor coalition) groupings, and even a few that describe themselves as Marxist...
...The upcoming NDI Conference July 7 might serve as an opportunity to clear up some of the difficulties and arrive at an agreed-upon division of labor among the three components...
...While U.S...
...NED insisted that labor would play a strategic role, since the issue of economic hardship would be crucial to anti-Sandinista organizing...
...Yet all ten members of the group's national executive committee are opposition militants: Three are top members of UNO, five are leaders of COSEP or its affiliates, and two are from the CPT unions...
...However, electoral law stipulated that 50% of donations be placed in a nonpartisan fund administered by the independent Supreme Electoral Council to defray the cost of the election...
...Civil liberties and UNO headquarters: Complaints that dollars fail to "trickle down" have hurt 1 9 a u L r, VJLLtVIjZ...
...It should include as many parties as possible, COSEP and the labor movement, women and youth...
...On July 7, NDI organizers landed in Managua...
...Follow-up talks were held with two other NED organizations: the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) of the AFL-CIO, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) of the U.S...
...The economy is in shambles...
...VOLUME XXIII, NO.5 (FEBRUARY 1990) Congress to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-public body, for the "Nicaraguan electoral process...
...Chamber of Commerce, links up with business groups...
...policy argue that its objective is non-partisan support for democratic institutions worldwide...
...funds may be distributed clandestinely, they are spent openly and liberally on sinecures for opposition activists...
...NDI and NRI had already brought most of the opposition parties together as the "Group of 14...
...In their strategy session Leonard and the NED personnel spoke of creating the formal coalition which would become UNO: "What should the procedure be to organize the opposition around a single candidate...
...Beyond these core organizations are other members of the foreign policy establishment, including Freedom House, the Center for Democracy and the Council of the Americas...
...However, even if the opposition does not win-and defeat seems likely-two years of U.S.-sponsored organizing, technical assistance, and donations of equipment and fixed installations, have built its capacity to remain active long after the elections are over...
...With the 1988 NED allocation, Delphi increased La Prensa's subsidy to just under $1 million for the period up to the elections...
...5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 9 the movement seeks to promote the political participation of young people....Nicaraguan youth will be mobilized to take an active role in the electoral process...
...Later that month, the forma- tion of the "civic group" was announced...
...Meanwhile, the Free Trade Union Institute focused on organized labor...
...First [we must] successfully negotiate the conditions for the elections, the rules, and then they can squabble amongst themselves over the candidates...
...Nicaraguans joke about how Somoza used to buy elections at 50 cents a head...
...foreign policy objectives through "open" political intervention, by supporting or creating client organizations in other nations...
...Participants spoke of creating lines of vertical command...
...foreign policy objectives...
...In 1986 Delphi took over NED's funding and support of the paper and, for the next two years, continued investing at similar levels...
...A February 1988 Delphi report underscores the goals of this initiative: "By strengthening the democratic leadership skills of a broad political and social spectrum of Nicaraguan youth, REPORT ON THE AMERICASthe movement seeks to promote the political participation of young people....Nicaraguan youth will be mobilized to take an active role in the electoral process...
...The Making of UNO In April 1989, when the electoral process formally opened, NED person- nel met in Managua with John Leonard, U.S...
...These funds were to be spent on paper, ink and new printing equipment, including a full color lab for campaign literature, as well as on the salaries of visiting Costa Rican journalists brought in quietly to "raise the professional level" of La Prensa staff...
...an NED-funded international arm of the Democratic Party, members of ND...
...Several constituencies were targeted for increased organizational efforts: labor, the media, business, women and youth...
...Delphi received $22,000 from NED earmarked to consolidate the dominance of the Group exercised by the right-wing Democratic Coordinating Committee (CDN) and to carry the unity process forward...
...Our objective in Nicaragua is not to seek an electoral victory of one side or the other," claims NDI Executive Director Kenneth Wallock, "but to give support to the democratic political process so that an open and competitive system can develop...
...objectives in their country...
...Such a group could undertake certain non-partisan activities, such as human rights monitoring, a parallel count, non-partisan voter registration, education and other tasks....The civic group needs to be independent and nonpartisan, but it should also coordinate with the other two groups and avoid duplication of effort...
...According to notes taken there, the goal would be "unification of the opposition" followed by "definition of a political agenda...
...Calling itself "Via Civica" (Civic Way), it quickly became known locally as "CIA Civica...
...IJNO headquarters: Complaints that dollars fail Civica sources who claim that IFES laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars for UNO...
...Since September 1988, a total of $12.5 million has been allocated by William I. Robinson is Washington correspondentfor the Nicaragua News Agency (ANN) and co-author of David and Goliath: The U.S...
...funding to that date...
...efforts would be "designed around three core themes: party planning and organizational strategies, constituency building, and coalition formation...
...In June 1989 the ubiquitous Henry Quintero packed his bags again, leaving Delphi for a new NED-conduit called the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES...
...UNO officials denied receiving any U.S...
...At the same time, the Bush Administration suspended Radio Liberacion, the contra station in Honduras established by USIA, and instead set up Radio Democracia inside Nicaragua to promote UNO...
...The elections, they contend, are better understood as a confrontation between the Revolution and the United States...
...In charge of Via Civica's women's affairs is Olga Maria Taboada, a national coordinator of a Conservative Party faction...
...Opponents charge that NED and its affiliates have usurped the mantle of "democracy" by trimming it to fit the pattern of U.S...
...This method of giving sophisticated training to top leadership and propelling a "multiplier effect" downward to the grassroots was also the game plan for the political parties, labor, and women...
...VIa CIvica's president, Carlos Quinonez, admitted that Sequiera was sent to San José to meet with Henry Quintero and IFES president Richard Sourdriette on August 1. On August28 Quintero arrived in Managua and regis- tered with immigration officials as a consultant for CYPSA...
...Meanwhile, Barricada reported the complaints of high school students in the capital that activists from the Youth Education Center were giving out free UNO T-shirts and offering students VOLUME XXIII, NO...
...The Delphi document summarizing the "women's project" is even more candid: "Nicaraguan women have begun to recognize their shared responsibility in rebuilding the political, social and economic life of the country" and "the decisive role they must play...
...First [we musti successfully negotiate the conditions for the elections, the rules, and then they can squabble amongst themselves over the candidates...
...Embassy in Managua held a series of meetings with the Workers Confederation of Nicaragua (CTN) and the Federation of Labor Unity (CUS) in the spring of 1988, urging them to work at unifying the unions under a single banner...
...Any aid that the U.S...
...Besides electoral legislation which requires all foreign donations be reported (and 50% turned over to the Electoral Council), all sizable international financial transactions must be registered with the National Bank and customs authorities...
...This allegedly was accomplished through Construcciones y Proyectos S.A...
...team sent to Managua remarked that "On the surface, the overall environment for change in Nicaragua appears to favor the opposi- tion...
...A February 1988 Delphi report underscores the goals of this initiative: "By strengthening the democratic leadership skills of a broad political and social spectrum of Nicaraguan youth, REPORT ON THE AMERICAS work that makes a party viable...
...According to an internal report of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), an NED-funded international arm of the Democratic Party, members of NDI and its Republican counterpart, the National Republican Institute (NRI), met soon thereafter in Washington with opposition party representatives, and traveled to Caracas, Panama City,and Managua to hold exploratory talks with civic opposition leaders...
...In October 1989, COSEP leader Roger Guevara Mena wrote to NED reporting that he and other COSEP leaders had installed themselves as the new station's board of directors and were ready to receive funds, equipment and guidance...
...Mirroring the disarray of the political parties, opposition trade unions were divided into no fewer than six factions...
...Agency for International Development (U.S.AID), was hired to run a "Nicaraguan Independent Media Program...
...Rather than a political movement, "antiSandinista activity" had become a profitable enterprise to attract funds and attention from abroad...
...According to a summary of their conversation, they decided to instruct the opposition "to postpone any announce- ment of a presidential candidate...
...Most observers like to depict Nicaragua's election campaign as a contest between the governing Sandinista Front and the political parties of the opposition...
...funding to that date...
...Such vehicles had hardly been seen since the United States trade embargo was imposed in 1985...
...Although UNO spokespeople claimed the $5.67 million budget was their "wish list," a month later Congress approved $9 million, $5 million of which was earmarked for "noncampaign support"--Via Civica, La Prensa, and the other non-party opposition groups...
...The CDN would form the core...
...labor movements the effort [by FTUI] will be crucial...
...charge d'affaires, to plan strategy...
...For many, these scenes recalled Somoza's "nacatamale y guaro" elections, in which peasants were trucked to voting stations and given a traditional corn-meal tamale and a drink of liquor as they were escorted to the ballot boxes...
...Later that month, representatives of the Group of 14 were brought to Washington for intensive consultations with the State Department, Congress and NED...
...However, even if the opposition does not win and defeat seems likely two years of U.S.-sponsored organizing, technical assistance, and donations of equipment and fixed installations, have built its capacity to remain active long after the elections are over...
...Opponents charge that NED and its affiliates have usurped the mantle of "democracy" by trimming it to fit the pattern of U.S...
...The original UNO campaign budget for September to February set aside $1.24 million in "salaries" for UNO campaign personnel, including $2,000 a month for the national campaign manager, $1,000 for administrators and publicity directors, and $500 for each of 16 "campaign representatives" and 16 regional administrators...
...government sends to our country, so long as it is not aimed at healing the wounds it has inflicted on us, is immoral...
...I IYYU) 11 political rights restricted during the contra war have been restored since the Esquipulas Accords were signed...
...In charge of VIa CIvica's women's affairs is Olga MarIa Taboada, a national coordinator of a Conservative Party faction...
...By 1988 Delphi had become the single largest recipient of NED Nicaragua funds...
...in this campaign the United States will spend more than $10 per voter...
...The budget also featured such categories as $337,000 in "vacation pay," $525,000 for "political rallies and meetings," $600,000 to pay 20,000 "poll watchers," and $50,000 for international travel...
...Chamber of Commerce...
...Richard Stone, the conservative ex-Senator from Florida and a key player on Reagan's Central America team, serves as IFES treasurer...
...According to documentation made available during the Iran-contra hearings, board chairman F. Clifton White, also on the board of NRI, worked with CIA Director William Casey and other Agency specialists in designing a covert public relations campaign to aid the contras...
...According to Delphi documentation, the strategy was to train a core group of national youth leaders from the political parties who would then select regional leaders...
...government agencies...
...Despite the diversity in political ideology and out- look," concluded an NED internal report, UNO, Via CIvica, and CPT, "expect to function during the campaign as a single unit...
...They've distributed lots of cash," observed one top-level centrist interviewed in April...
...Chamber of Commerce...
...invasion, and had neglected the grassroots political NICARAGUA The Making of a "Democratic" Opposition BY WILLIAM I. ROBINSON Chamorro and VP candidate Virgilio Godoy, flanked by Miriam ArgUello of a Conservative Party faction and Eli Altamirano of the Communist Party NICARAGUA The Making of a "Democratic" Opposition BY WILLIAM I. ROBINSON UN SOLO CI UN SOLO P1 UNA U Chamorro and VP candidate Virgilio Godoy, flanked by Miriam Arguello of a Conservative Party faction and Eli Altamirano of the Communist Party Just minutes after being nominated as FSLN presidential candidate for the February 25 elections, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra was asked if he would face his principal opponent, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, in a televised debate...
...Although the rhetoric of democracy has a certain appeal, such activities surely constitute gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation a "modern" method of continuing the sorry history of U.S...
...These activists, the proposal noted, "need to be motivated and trained for their roles: Supervision and direction of the effort [by FTUI] will be crucial...
...In June 1989 the ubiquitous Henry Quintero packed his bags again, leav- ing Delphi for a new NED-conduit called the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES...
...CYPSA), a local subsidiary of Inversiones Martinez Lopez (IML), a firm founded in 1977 by one of Somoza's economics ministers...
...IFES, one of the shadier of the NED-linked groups, has on its board a veritable Who's Who of contra strategists...
...The elections, they contend, are better understood as a confrontation between the Revolution and the United States...
...According to senior NDI official Michael Stoddard, these were intended to "generate international support and attention for the opposition leaders, put the Sandinistas on notice, and explore the possibilities for the civic opposition to take major advantage of the Esquipulas opening...
...which, according to an NED report, received $22,000 in 1988...
...Congress to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-public body, for the "Nicaraguan electoral process...
...organizing workshops on group dynamics, styles of leadership and hypothetical scenarios...
...Organizations: NED: National Endowment for Democracy NDI: National Democratic Institute NRI: National Republican Institute FTUI: Free Trade Union Institute CIPE: Center for International Private Enterprise IFES: International Foundation for Electoral Systems USIA: United States Information Agency U.S.AID: U.S...
...Yet funding is but one element of what appears to be a massive U.S...
...WIR§ in and allowed foreign campaign contributions, a practice prohibited in the United States and most other countries...
...Organizations: NED: National Endowment for Democracy NDI: National Democratic Institute NRI: National Republican Institute FTUI: Free Trade Union Institute CIPE: Center for International Private Enterprise IFES: International Foundation for Electoral Systems USIA: United States Information Agency U.S.AID: U.S...
...La Prensa, the opposition daily, received $150,000 from NED between 1983 and 1985...
...Through CUS-which FTUI's parent organization, the American Institute for Free Labor Development, has supported since Somoza's time-FTUI sponsored several trade union seminars in Managua later that year which led to the formation of an umbrella organization, the Permanent Congress of Workers (CPT...
...The Sandinistas are quick to point out that the United States has historically denied the Nicaraguan people their most fundamental human rights and democratic liberties, and thus has no moral authority to speak about democracy...
...In October 1989, COSEP leader Roger Guevara Mena wrote to NED reporting that he and other COSEP leaders had installed themselves as the new station's board of directors and were ready to receive funds, equipment and guidance...
...Agency for International Development Nicaraguan Opposition Organizations: UNO: National Opposition Union (party coalition) CDN: Democratic Coordinating Committee COSEP: Superior Council of Private Enterprise CTN: Workers Confederation of Nicaragua CUS: Federation of Labor Unity CPT: Permanent Congress of Workers (labor coalition) groupings, and even a few that describe themselves as Marxist...
...They should "organize rallies and protests, [and oversee a] series of seminars and workshops tailored to train 'multipliers' to train and motivate their peers to participate...
...More than one reporter was taken aback when Ortega declared he would like to challenge his "campaign opponent, George Bush," to a live debate at "opposition headquarters in Washington, D.C...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 5
