REAGAN AND REVOLUTION: Sandinista Stay Home
Komisar, Lucy
Sandinista, Stay Home It was to have been a counterpoint to President Reagan's one-note samba in Central America—an expression of solidarity with the beleaguered government in Nicaragua and with...
...Brandt called off the meeting, evidently swayed by the argument, flawed as it was...
...And although socialists are concerned about threats to pluralism in Nicaragua, they believe the Sandinistas are best influenced from the inside as friends, not left to face their economic problems and external threats alone...
...Someone also wired many of the parties and told them the event had been cancelled...
...It was the second time in seven months that a Socialist International meeting had run aground, and the second time the United States was blamed...
...He offered no solid evidence of U.S...
...allies, that Washington has targeted the Socialist International as an enemy...
...The Socialist International, a group of sixty-three democratic socialist parties from around the world, had hotly opposed Washington's skewed Central American policy, and the meeting it planned for February in Caracas would surely have added fuel to the fires...
...Dutch Labor Party International Secretary Maarten van Traa said other European and Latin American socialists shared his party's view...
...The Costa Rican social democrats endorsed Venezuela's stand...
...He said that since Brandt had already invited the Sandinistas to Caracas, the meeting should be postponed...
...Perez was president of Venezuela until 1979, and his government gave important political and military aid to the Sandinista army...
...Some European socialist leaders see the long arm of the United States behind the Venezuelans' decree...
...Ever since a meeting two years ago in Santo Domingo, where the socialists strongly favored the Salvadoran and Guatemalan insurgencies, "the Americans have been increasingly active before, during, and after our meetings," says Pierre Schori, international secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party...
...Sandinista, Stay Home It was to have been a counterpoint to President Reagan's one-note samba in Central America—an expression of solidarity with the beleaguered government in Nicaragua and with the guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala...
...Participants of a meeting in Grenada last July said the State Department convinced the socialist parties of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica to stay away...
...Meanwhile, European suspicions continue to grow, and the inclination toward an independent European foreign policy may grow with them...
...Parties must be democratic and socialist to join the Socialist International, it is true, but invited observers need not be...
...Of course, no sign of American influence came out in the letter Venezuelan Democratic Action leader Carlos Andres Perez sent to Brandt...
...The conference was called off when the host, Venezuela's Democratic Action Party, told Socialist International President Willy Brandt that the Sandinistas could not come as observers, as they have in the past...
...But there is a growing belief among European socialists, even socialists from countries that are U.S...
...The truth about the Caracas meeting may not be known for years, not until someone pries loose a classified document or writes a memoir...
...African liberation movements that define themselves as Marxist-Leninist are welcome to sit in on most proceedings...
...Now, he told Brandt that the Socialist International should reconsider its ties with the Sandinistas, since they are not a social-democratic party and have threatened democratic pluralism in Nicaragua by postponing elections until 1985, repeatedly closing the opposition paper La Prensa, jailing some business people, and restricting the unions' right to strike...
...In Washington, the State Department is mum on the cancelled meeting...
...There are no smoking guns here, no proof of American meddling...
...political pressure led our sister party in Venezuela to refuse attendance at this meeting by representatives of the FSLN [Sandinista National Liberation Front] of Nicaragua," the Dutch Labor Party, a member of its country's coalition government, wrote to the American ambassador in Amsterdam...
...Except that it never happened...
...It was an independent decision reached by them, and that's all we're going to say on the matter...
...We're not going to have any comment," said a spokesperson...
...They suspect the State Department stepped in, trying to short-circuit any embarrassing support for Nicaragua at a time when Europeans are already decrying America's hostility toward the Sandinistas...
...Lucy Komisar (Lucy Komisar is a New York writer who specializes in foreign affairs...
...We cannot but have the firm impression that U.S...
...sabotage, though, saying only, "We have our sources...
Vol. 46 • May 1982 • No. 5
