THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE CONTRAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605730002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 28, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605730002-2
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE /!Id
BOSTON GLOBE
28 February 1987
The good, the bad and the contras
R
Ca 0. a hard liner ion associated with administration was trying to discredit
I& CIA and surrounded by lieutenan s hat election. Then he accepted money
of the deposed dictator Somoza, was fr&m the CIA and for most of 1986,
pressed to resign from the directorate of $7,000 per month from Lt Col Oliver
the United Nicaraguan Opposition. That orth.
move lets the administration argue that Robelo is slicker, smoother and richer
~/~-R~- O~PH RYAIit ~ruZ rsnip nas passed to Robelo and than Cruz. His political career is even
more filled with twists and turns sug-
These are both personable fellows, gesting opportunism rather than princi-
The administration stage-managed a seemingly decent and reasonable and pie. As one of two conservatives on the
shift in the top leadership of the Nicara- well connected in Washington. But the Nicaraguan junta in 1979-80, Robelo had
guan contras last week to give the im- issue that determines their credibility in- an opportunity to work to increase the
pression that good contras are on the side Nicragua is how they and the rest of political space for opponents of the San-
rise and bad contras are in decline. It the contras are viewed by opponents of dinistas. He never exploited that oppor-
was an effort to win hearts and minds, the Sandinistas who stayed at home. tunity. Instead, he went to Costa Rica
not in Nicaragua but in the US Congress, It is important for members of Con- and eventually joined. the contras.
which is deciding whether to end the gress to understand why the contra lead- Robelo and Cruz may look good com-
five-year war or, as the administration ers. including Cruz and Robelo, have no pared with Calero, the old-school right-
hopes, to let it drag on. more credibility as a political force Inside winger, but they are hardly gutsy Demo-
The refurbishing of the contras to Nicaragua than they do as a military crats likely to inspire and speak for the
give them more political credibility is force. Confusion on that score-led a num- average Nicaraguan. If anything they
wholly a Washington game. The paper ber of decent people in Congress last year represent Nicaragua's old business and
demotion of archconservative warlord to support military aid. land-owning classes, the kind of Third
Adolfo Calero, who still controls the con- These swing legislators may have Wonder that American officials and
tra army. and the ostensible promotion been taken in by the facile arguments de- businessmen like to deal with. That ex-
of moderates Arturo Cruz and Alfonso veloped, for example, by Robert Lelken of plains why they were picked in Washing-
Robelo are unlikely to make much of an the Carnegie Endowment for Interna- ton to head the contras.
impression in Nicaragua, where the con- tional Peace. Leiken has worked hard to What Cruz, Robelo and Calero all re-
tras have no credibility. help the administration paste a veneer of fleet is the plantation mentality that in-
But this shuffle is an opportunity to political credibility on Robelo and Cruz. fected Nicaraguan political life during
examine the myth of the good contras. Cruz's problem is that he is ambiva- the many decades of US manipulation
which assorted academic theorists have lent and vacillating. Cruz was a banker and intervention. They share the as-
used to persuade Congress to continue Nicaragua. then ambassador to the sumption that Nicaragua really belongs
the to on r u grounds that it creates ue ' United States for the Sandinistas. He to the United States, and that it is valid
oeniag forthe
democracy. made a stab at running in the 1984 Nica- for would-be leaders to turn to Washing-
raguan presidential election, but ton to find shortcuts to political legitima-
The news event last week was that dropped out at a time when th
cy.
heroes and democrats in Nicaragua. op-
position politicians whose life is hard un-
der the Sandinistas but who have decid-
ed to hang in, to fight to change the sys-
tem from within, to make the elections
and the constitution meaningful roads to
greater political freedom, instead of bail-
ing out to San Jose or Miami to live on
some American dole. '
By inviting Sandinista repression
and narrowing the opening for political
dissent, the contra war makes life
hardest for those patriots who stayed
home and opposed the contra war. If
they persist in their uphill task it is be-
cause they are hewn from different tim-
ber than Robelo and Cruz.
Randolph Ryan is a member of the
Globe staff..
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605730002-2