[Nous activities of the 10,000 CIA financed 'contras'…]

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Nous activities of the 10,000 CIA financed 'contras' , conducting cross-border raids into the North of Nicargua from US-run bases in Honduras, the whole US activity remains within the general lines of a display of sabrerattling. The contras cannot win short of a full-scale intervention by Honduran and American troops.

Verbal

In a verbal level, of course, he offensive against the Sandinistas has been stepped up. The brutal imperialist arrogance with which the US views the countries and peoples of Central America are perhaps best summed up in the candid words of Deane | Hinton, until recently US bassador in El Salvador, who indignantly told Newsweek:

'The Soviet bloc has come to play in our backyard; and when we respond, we're accused of "'escalating" • the ADTSERS By Harry conflict'. (18/7/83)

This is the line which the US imperialists have with increasing success persuaded the mass media - even those critical of Reagan's tactics - to echo in the coverage of Central America.

Of course it is true that the USA regards the area as its own - rundown, bloodstained, debt-ridden, dictatorial and cruelly exploited - backyard. But Hinton's chiefs in Washington know full well that the bureaucratic leadership in the Kremlin accept such a state of affairs, and have no wish to jeopardise their 'peaceful coexistence with imperialism by seeking to intervene in what is so clearly the US 'sphere of influence' isdoo US intervention against Nicaragua and for a concerted move to re-establish imperialist authority in the region.

Neither Brezhnev nor Andropov has shown the slightest interest or concern with the struggles in Central America. Sandinista represenLatives at the last CPSU Congress were lett to organise their own 'fringe' meeting outside the officia. agenda. Soviet military supplies and assistance have been limited in the extreme to a fledgling regime struggling to defend itself against the massive armed might of US imperialism 1 and its stooge regimes in Central America.

Soviet ships

Asked last week what substance there was to US claims that a dozen Soviet ships laden with arms and military supplies were headed for Nicaragua, Sandinista Foreign Minister Miguel d'Escoto replied 'I only: wish the reports were true' The Soviet reluctance to get seriously involved in a confrontation in Central America is echoed by the attitude of the Cuban bureaucracy though their outward rhetoric has been adjusted to the different climate and audience of the region.

Though willing to extend a certain degree of aid to the Sandinista regime after it had successfully ousted the US-backed Somoza dictatorship, Fidel Castro has skilfully avoided any explicit pledge to go to its defence against an imperialist attack.

And he has consistently stated the view that Nicarasua should not seek to become but should simply build Nicara and the USA, to open the way to some form of settlement.

This approach renounces any revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and restricts the goal in advance to some form of 'democratic' reform that would give the FDR leaders a role in a future Salvadoran government.

Last week - under the impact of Reagan's military power politics and no doubt some arm-twisting from his backers in the Kremlin - Castro went to hate miftary aid to dotered and onered dinistas if agreement were reached to free the region of all foreign arms and advisors.

Castro's retreat under pressure is no doubt one of the factors that have brought parallel retreats by the FDR-FMLN leaders and by the Sandinistas themselves.

Monday saw the first ever official meeting between Reagan's hard-line special envoy Richard Stone and FDR representative Ruben Zamora (the one-time minister in El Salvador's 1979 'reformist' junta, who was described two months before the formation of the FDR as 'a close ally of the US State Department').

Though US spokespersons were reticent over the outcome of the meeting, Zamora declared himself 'definitely more hopeful', and appears to have agreed that a meeting between Stone and the full political and diplomatic commission of the FDR-FMLN would be 'worthwhile' No concessions Since no concessions are ordinator of the revolutionary government.

Though correctly stressing that the stiuation in Central America stems from US aggression, Ortega used the platform of a 150,000 strong rally in Leon to announce SiXpoint plan for a 'negotiated political solution involving _ An immediate non-agression pact between Nicaragua and Honduras; • An absolute halt to all arms shipments to 'any of the forces involved in conflict in El Salvador'; L An absolute nait to mul- 1. -1-11 tary support to 'forces opposed to any of the governments in Central America'; • Agreement not to establish foreign military bases and suspend military exercises with foreign armies in Central Ortega went on to proclaim his support for the efforts of the Contadora group of alarmed bourgeois goverments Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, and Panama - to get talks going.

Coexistence

And he specifically voiced the call for the 'fundamental principles of peaceful coexistence among nations' which has been the watchword for those seeking to renounce any revolutionary ambition since the rise of the Soviet bureaucracy headed by Josef Stalin in the mid 1920s.

Nor is the Sandinista quest for "peaceful coexistence' restricted to foreign policy: Ortega's regime continues to favour the existence of a 'mixed economy' within which a substantial private sector stands as an obstacle to a planned economy and a potential fifth column' to assist any more concerted efforts which would rapidly esc ate beyond the scale of t forces currently at his dispo and without any appare end in sight.

Already top Democra Party leaders have shor the divisions within the 1 ruling class on the issi declaring themselves oppos to any US war in Central Ami ica.

An escalation into full scr military involvement wot create a huge political cri in the USA and mass opr sition - with elections come in 1984.

Cash at But it is not only the do estic scene that alarms employers: there is a v amount of cash involved u One reason why the Con dora group has been ru: ing around in such a frei is because it fears the i pact on the Latin Americ masses of a full-scaie w Without a doubt one imp of such a war would be intensify the pressure Mexico and other regin massively in hock to the and world bankers to ! fault on their punitive di repayments. The effect even one government taki such action could be ca clysmic for the banking s tem, with knock-on effe in the USA and Europe.

Intervention may easy from a purely milit point of view - though i US military brass are nc too confident that the ope tion would be a simple c - but is hugely complicat in political terms.

Even assuming Reag were successful in oust the Sandinistas and infli ing setbacks on the FMI the problem of installing & sustaining new, pliable, ri