S/PV.2633 Security Council

I should like to inform members of the’Counci1 that I have received letters from the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mexico, Nicaragua, the ,Syrian Arab Republic and Viet Nam in which they request to be invited to participate in the discussion of the item bn the Council’s agenda. In conformity with the usual practice, I propose, with consent of the Council, to invite those representatives to participate in the debate, without the right to vote, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter and rule 37 of the provisional rules of procedure. At the invitation of the President, ME linoco (Nicaragua) took a pIace at the Council table; MC Rajaie-Khorassani (Islamic Republic of Iran), Mr Maya-Palencia (Mexico), Mr: El-Fattal (Syrian Arab Republic) and MI: Bui Xiuzn Nhat (Viit Nam) took the places resetved for them at the side of the Council Chamber.

The Security Council will now begin consideration of the item on its agenda. The Council is meeting today in response to the request contained in a letter dated 6 December 1985 from the Charge d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Nicaragua to the United Nations addressed to the President ‘bf the Security Council, issued as document (S/17671). 3. Jwish to draw the attention of members of the Council to documents SA7674, S/l7675 and S/17676, which contain the texts of letters dated 5 and 6 December from the Charge d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Nicaragua to the Secretary-General. 4. The first speaker is the representative of Nicaragua.

I wish to express to you, Mr. President, the appreciation of the Nicaraguan delegation for your having convened this meeting, requested by my country to inform the Security Council of the most recent events provoked by the United States in Central America, which have aggravated the already explosive situation there. 6. The Council and public opinion are -aware of the criminal and mercenarywar that the United States Government has been waging against the Nicaraguan Govemment since 1981. In recent weeks there has been an escalation of its involvement in that war of aggression, as well as in the type of weapons and supplies provided to the counter-revolutionary forces. That escalation of the war in Central America is chaiacterized by the following factors. 7. In May the United States Congress, in yet another act of defiance of the most fundamental norms governing international relations, approved the appropriation of $27 million to finance activities aimed at overthrowing the legitimate Government of my country. That humanitarian aid, as it was euphemistically described in order to conceal the real purpose of this a&t, was in fact intended to continue uninterrupted the flow of military supplies to the counter-revolutionary bands which, under the control and leadership of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States, are qperating from the territory of the neighbouring countries of Honduras and Costa Rica. 8. In the same context, further heightening tension in the region, the Reagan Administration announced only a few days ago the holding of new joint military manoeuvres in Honduras which will last without interruption throughout the first six months of 1986. During those manoeuvres, called “Terensio Sierra”, the United States will continue : to build a military infrastructure guaranteeing a rearguard position for the mercenaries and providing them with . 10. There may be some people in this Chamber who have doubtsabout the truth of the statement that the United States Government supplied those surface-to-air missiles to the mercenary forces attacking the Govemment of Nicaragua. In order to dispel some of those doubts, I shall read some extracts from the press and public st+ements by offtcials of the United States Administration clearly showing that Government’s responsibility for the supply of those sophisticated weapons. 11. On 14 September this year the highest military leader of the FDN [Frenre Democrarico Nicatagt2ense], the ex-Somozist Colonel Enrique Bermudez, told the media that his organization would soon begin attacking Sovietmade helicopters with portable American-made, red-eye rockets. 12. Later, on 31 October, the Honduran daily newspaper El Timpo reported: “Recently some 200 cadres of the FDN were rewarded, after a course in their use, with SAM-7 missiles supplied to the insurgents by the United States after the Sandiits had obtained modem Soviet helicopters.” 13. .On 13 November the counter-revolutionary leader Indalecio Rodriguez publicly announced that the training being given to the FDN mercenaries was based on the use of surface-to-air missiles, and that some of them had been photographed by the international press, thus showing the world that it was true that his organization possessed those weapons. He said that in the coming weeks the Sandinists would feel the impact of those weapons and see that the defence of the “freedom fighters” was not passive, but active. 14. Lastly, that same counter-revolutionary, Rodriguez, said that his forces had weapons that were adequate to the task of counteracting the Sandinist forces, and that the most important thing at that time was the arrival of those ,weapons from the United States. 15. Since January 1985 the Nicaraguan Government has known, thanks to confidential and reliable sources, that United States experts are training counter-revolutionar- 16. It is useful to recall here the complaints we have ’ lodged in the past, to the effect that in the El Pa&so department, in Honduras, in an area of approximately 40 kilometres along the border with Nicaragua, there are a number of counter-revolutionary camps such as Las ‘Rojes, Gifuentes, Arenales, Las Vegas-the camp I have already mentioned-and others, where some 2,000 mercenaries are encamped with the full knowledge of the Honduran Government. The Las Vegas camp is one of the largest concentrations of counter-revolutionary forces of Fe ;yderlrat exist inside Honduran territory and along . . 17. American television networks, some of which are sympathetic towards the United States Administration and the mercenary forces, have filmed those missiles in the hands of the counter-revolutionary forces and shown their films publicly. 18. If anyone were nevertheless’ to have any further doubts as to the responsibility of the United States for the supply of those missiles to the counter-revolutionary forces, it would be useful to point out that the American Under-Secretary of State, Elliot Abrams, just a few days ago, in statements made before a committee of the United States Congress, reported that the Nicaraguan helicopter had been downed by a SAM-7 missile. That acknowledgement and confirmation by Under-Secretary Abrams occurred before the special committee appointed by the Nicaraguan Government to investigate the downing of the helicopter could confirm the use of those missiles by the mercenary forces. 19. For his’part, the United States Secretary of State, George Shultz, who in recent weeks has been characterized by his brazenness in acknowledging his interference in the internal affairs of Nicaragua by supporting counterrevolutionary forces,, indicated, at an official conference as he was leaving for Europe, that: “[The Contras] in some way obtained the missiles, and we are pleased that they did so. . . . The fact that at the present time the Contras seem able to fire against those helicopters could stem their use to some extent, and that is very good. May the Contras have more of those weapons.“, 20. The Nicaraguan Government considers it fundamental that the Security Council reflect on the significance of the introduction and supply of this type of weapon to irregular forces, to mercenary forces, in the Central American region. 21. First of all it must be pointed out that this is the fmt time in the history of the American continent that an irregular force fighting against an established Govemment has received this type of weapon. It must be recalled 22. Furthermore it must be noted that this very dangerous weapon has been placed not only in the hands of an irregular group but also in the hands of a terrorist and mercenary group that has not precisely been characterized by its respect for human rights or for the physical integrity of persons but that rather, on the contrary, has in the past four and a half years dedicated itself to the systematic murder of farmers, teachers, the elderly, children, women and mothers, for which it has been denounced many times in the past. It is to persons of that type that sophisticated weapons are being given. 23. In this respect, terrorists are being given unprecedented powers on this continent. This therefore brings us to the conclusion that, given this situation, the very safety of civil aviation in the Central American region is now in jeopardy, Really, nothing-not even the very Government of the United States, which has often recognized that the Contras are often out of control-can guarantee that those terrorists are not going to use those missiles against a civilian aircraft belonging to either Nicaragua or another country, thinking or assuming that some of these aircraft may be carrying revolutionaryor Sandinist leaders, and of thus making a spectacular strike at the Nicaraguan revolution. 24. It is therefore a fact that if the legitimization of the use of that type of weapon by the counter-revolutionary, mercenary forces is permitted, the United States will have managed not only to strengthen those forces from the standpoint of their military resources but also in practice to repeat the criminal action of the mining of Nicaraguan ports in 1984, with the difference that in this case it will be mining Central American air space. If this situation continues not even the United States will in the near future be able to guarantee the safety of civil aviation in our Central American region. 25. Without question, that act has raised the Central American conflict to unprecedented levels of seriousness. There is no doubt that this escalation, this new step in the aggression against Nicaragua represented by the supply of missiles to the counter-revolutionary forces gives the Central American conflict a dimension which will affect not only the stability of Central America, but the very stability of Latin America. 26. Moreover, this United States Government action confii that Government’s disdain for international law and for the 10 May 1984 Order of the International Court of Justice directing the United States to cease its aggres- 27. We believe it useful to enquire into or reflect on the reasoning behind the decision by the United States AdministratTon to provide such weapons to the counter-revolutionary forces. To understand that reasoning, it is essential to be familiar with the ideas contained in the United States Government’s official response to the note of protest sent to it on Thursday, 5 December, by the Government of Nicaragua after confirmation of the downing of an MI-S transport helicopter by a missile launched by the mercenaries. 28. In that official message sent to the Nicaraguan Charge d’affaires in Washington by Mr. Richard Melton of the Central American office of the Department of. State, we read the following: “The act to which the Nicaraguan note refers was carried out by the FDN, not by the United States. I “Ihat act constitutes a logical response to the introduction of highly-sophisticated Soviet attack helicopters. “The escalation is a result of the introduction of those helicopters, not of measures taken by the opposition to defend itself against them. ‘Those helicopters are used to cause high casualties; they are effective and have been used to carry out genocide in Afghanistan. “The SAM-7 missile is thus a purely defensive weapon. “The Government of Nicaragua has adopted a provocative stand in the face of political, civil and armed opposition.” The text I have quoted sets out precisely the reasoning and arguments officially transmitted in Washington by the Government of the United States to the Government of Nicaragua on Friday, 6 December. 29. We think it is important to consider more deeply the consequences of that reasoning, of that official position of the United States Government. First of all, a careful reading of the text which I have quoted shows that at no time does the United States Government see fit to deny that it is responsible for the provision of those missiles to the counter-revolutionary forces. In its official reply, the United States Government does not deny having supplied those missiles, but confines itself to saying that the act itself was carried out by FDN forces and not by the United States, despite the fact that the note of protest sent by the Nicaraguan Government contains an accusation and clear protest to the United States Government ‘for having supplied the mercenaries with such weapons. , . .‘. - _-- :. .-e ._ mental example of the most utter disdain for international anti-aircraft missiles’to the armed opposition groups in law. Honduras so that they too can counteract the effectiveness of the aforementioned devices. 31. If we pursue our examination of this logic of the United States Government we find the following. 32. On the one hand the United States Government focuses its attention on the reasoning that the Sandinist air force helicopters are effective and are intended to produce high casualties. Then .it states that the FDN mercenary group, which opposes the Government of Nicaragua, has the right to use missiles to defend itself against the effectiveness of the Sandiist air force helicopters. .Following that logic, we would conclude that any irregular or insurgent group faced with the deployment of helicopters or any other type of effective aerial measures by a legally established Government could possibly receive such SAM-7 missiles from the United States Government. 33. If we continue from another standpoint to consider the idea of the effectiveness of weapons possessed by a legally established and internationally recognized Government for its struggle against irregular or insurgent groups, we will find that a great many countries have effective means to carry out their counter-insurgency actidies. 34. To be brief, if we were to apply this United States reasoning to the situation in Central America we would find ourselves in a special situation. For this we can base ourselves on data we consider to be reliable. 35. We can base ourselves on data supplied in the most recent study of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London, which, in the 1985-1986 edition of 77re MiIiaty Balance, shows that the armed forces of El Salvador have at their disposal the following airborne means for counter-insurgency: 50 United States UH-1H helicopters, 4 Hughes 5OOMD attack helicopters, and 8 A-37 Dragonfly jet aircraft, which are bombers used in counterinsurgency operations. There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that such air mat&ieZ in the possession of El Salvador is indeed effective in that Government’s struggle against the insurgents. If we were to apply the American reasoning strictly, we would have to conclude that the United States should also be prepared to assist the revolutionary forces opposing the Government of El Salvador to counteract the effectiveness of those weapons by supplying them with surface-to-air missiles such as those it has supplied to the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary forces. 36. In the case of Honduras, the same London study reports that the Honduran air force has the following counter-insurgency means: 22 UH-1H helicopters, 14 Super-Mysttre D-2 aircraft and 11 A-37 Dragonfly air- 37. Unfortunately, the tragedy of this official reasoning by the United States Government, of this ONvellian inversion of reality, does not stop there. In the frenzied illogic of the text quoted earlier we can also read, “The Govemment of Nicaragua has adopted a provocative attitude towards the armed political opposition.” According to this logic, Nicaragua is provoking the armed opposition, that is, the CIA mercenaries, the counter-revolutionary forces; it is provoking them by defending itself against the activity and the warfare in which they are engaging on behalf of the Government of the United States. According to that logic, the Government of Nicaragua is provoking the counter-revolutionary forces by defending itself against the attempts by the United States to overthrow it. If we try to follow such logic we will find ourselves once again in a situation in which the Organization is seen to be replete with provocative countries or Governments because such Governments, in one way or another, are confronting and combating the action of insurgent groups fighting under one flag or another. 38. That logic is the height of brazen shamelessness. It is essentially, and ina word, the logic of a terrorist State. 39. The statements of the United States Administration and the ideas set forth in its official communication to the Govermnent of Nicaragua would be truly laughable if their consequences were not so unfortunate and so tragic for the people of Central America. The logic we have just examined is the logic the United States Administration officially employs to justify having supplied SAM-7 missiles to the mercenary forces attacking the Government of Nicaragua. That is the logic of the absurd. It is Orwellian, and it distorts reality. It is the logic of irrationality. It is the logic of State terrorism, of arrogance and of imperialist policies. It is a logic that destroys international law and makes it a dead letter. It is the logic of warfare and ofthe spreading of the conflict in Central America, of the destabilization of Latin America. It is the logic of those who have no interest& just,negotiated political solutions, who have no interest in the Contadora process. It is the logic of the Reagan doctrine on Central America and the third world. 40. Nicaragua has appeared before this forum to denounce, to warn against and to fight the kind of reasoning we have just describedbecause that logic and that doctrine are now being applied in Central America with tragic and harmful results, and because it is a reasoning that is now being extended to other parts of the world--to southern Africa and other areas where peoples are struggling for their independence and their right to self-determination. 41. Nicaragua is confident, none the less, that the unity of the international community will succeed in averting that threat. The international community must unseat the Horseman of the Apocalpse that is threatening Central America and Latin America by supplying surface-to-air missiles to mercenary forces. The international community-the peoples of the world-has already blocked and defeated another damaging venture against the people of Nicaragua, one that posed a threat because of tts repercussions on all the peoples of the world: the mining of Nicaraguan ports on both oceans by the Government of the United States. 42. For their part, the Government and people of Nicaragua, faithful to their determination to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, their political independence and self-determination, will continue to defend themselves against the mercenary forces acting in the service of the United States Government, notwithstanding the resources they enjoy and that may be supplied to them in the future. Wewill continue to fight those enemies of the independence of Latin America; we will continue to fight against the mercenaries. We do not doubt that, sooner rather than later, our peo come even direct intervention by the United rs le will overtates, if that happens.

As this is the first opportunity I have had, Sir, to speak before the Council since you assumed the presidency, I should like to e satisfaction it is for my Government, ‘ip ress the great and or me personally, to see you presiding over the Council. The Council is indeed privileged to conduct its work this month under your leadership. I should like also to express the gratitude of my delegatton for the professional, judicious and fair manner in which your predecessor, the representative of Australia, Richard Woolcott, conducted the presidency of the Council during his term. [Thespeak-ercontinued in Englirh.] 44. In presenting its complaint before this body, the Government of Nicaragua continues to ignore the central fact that it has a serious problem with many of its own countrymen. Rather than accept this reality and seekways to come to terms with the growing oppositionto Sandinist policies through negotiation of a peaceful settlement, the Sandmists have sought to crush all forms of domestic opposition sentiment and to portray the democratic armed resistance as a reactionary mercenary force organized by the United States. Unfortunately, the Nicaraguan Government’s insistence on perpetuating this fantasy has been the most serious obstacle to peace in the region. 45. The Nicaraguan representative has referred to the Reagan Administration. I would simply point out that the Reagan Administration is the Government of the United 46. At the heart of the Central American conflict is the striving of the peoples of the Isthmus to realixe their right to a voice in the affairs of their Government. Central America is coming of age, moving strongly into the mainstream of Western democratic tradition. The hard-won fruits of development have meant a better educated, better fed and better informed populace that has in recent years asserted -with greater and greater clarity-its desire to have a Government responsible to the will of the people. The United States has consistently supported this development, and, I might note, we have supported it in Nicaragua as well. After the revolution of 1979, the United States provided the Nicaraguan Government with $119 million in economic assistance and supported Nicaraguan requests for many millions more in multilateral financial institutions. 47. With the exception of Nicaragua, this economic and social development has been paralleled by marked progress towards democracy. Last Sunday Guatemala held a runoff election, the final step before the inauguration of a civilian president in that country, Honduras has just completed elections. Costa Ricans will go to the polls in February. Most recently, El Salvador held elections for its Legislative Assembly in March of this year, the last in a series of four democratic elections since 1982. All these elections by Nicaragua’s neighbours had, or will have, one ingredient essential to democratic process -until the votes are counted, no one knows who is going to win. That sweet mystery, how the people will finally speak, is the essence of democracy. 48. In contrast there was no mystery to the so-called election held in Nicaragua in November of last year. As sure as the Republic of Nicaragua’s flag is blue and white, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the candidate of the Frente Sandinista de Liberaci6n National, the standard bearer of the red and black flag, was destined to be anointed by those elections. Any lingering wisp of mystery was systematically eliminated by the Sandiists as they excluded from the elections the major opposition groups and structured the proceedings to ensure their victory. As a result, on 4 November we sadly watched the clock turn back to the days of the Somoza dynasty and the Nicaraguan people were obliged to participate in another staged mockery of democratic process, a facade to perpetuate in power those , who already ran the country. That election-which, since there was no real choice, defies the definition of an election-was but one step in the inexorable movement towards a single-party State in Nicaragua. 49. Much was made two months ago of the 15 October 1985 announcement by Daniel Ortega Saavedra of a “new” state of emergency. In fact, the official suspension of all basic civil liberties -including freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom from arbitrary arrest -was merely the codification of what have been the facts of life with which Nicaraguans have 50. What is new is not the state of emergency itself, but the scope and intensity of the assault against virtually all elements of the civil opposition. The fact that the Sandinists chose to bear the international cost of this course of action indicates how deeply concerned they had become with growing political dissent. The armed democratic opposition which the Sandiists had repeatedly dismissed as a temporary irritant with no popular support -which was soon to be eliminated-lingered on and grew in strength, and again and again the Sandinists moved back the deadline for their annihilation. From 7,000 to 8,000 men in mid-1984, the armed resistance has grown to some 20,000 men and women under arms -a force to be reckoned with and many times the size of the Frente Sandinista de Liberaci6n National itself when it came to power in 1979. We have been told that revolution cannot be exported; neither can counter-revolution. It has to be indigenous. 51. The Sandinists present the struggle against their attempt to impose a totalitarian regime as some vast conspiracy organized by the United States. The heroic Nicaraguan peo le continue to discredit this often-repeated charge. #l e Sandinists will never succeed in portraying thousands of Nicaraguan citizens who have taken up arms to resist the perversion of their revolution as paid mercenaries of a foreign Power. Can the Sandinists really believe that some 20,000 members of the armed resistance in Nicaragua would risk their lives by challenging the largest armed force ever assembled in Central America for anything less than patriotic motives? 52. The patriotism of these men and women is based on two deeply felt emotions: hope and fear-hope that the original democratic goals of the revolution can still be realized; fear of a deepening repression not seen since the worst days of the Somoza regime. These two powerful emotions have contributed to the remarkable and consistent growth of the armed resistance. Despite the hardships and the sacrifice, the disparate groups of the resistance, most of whom fought bravely for the goals of the original revolution, have come together in a struggle for liberty against Sandiist repression. 53. It is worth noting that the rank and file of the resistance forces are for the most part young people in their late teens and early 2Os, men and women whose only political reality has been Sandinist rule. They can hardly be attached to the past; they have only childhood memories of the Somoza dictatorship. Their political attitudes have been formed since the revolution m 1979, and their reaction over time has been to repudiate the grim totalitarian system that has been progressively imposed on them. 55. Of course, I do not have access to the cotidential sources to which the Nicaraguan representative referred. The MI-24 was only the latest addition to what has been a massive military buildup in Nicaragua, beginning immediately after the overthrow of Somoza in 1979. I might add that no other Latin American country in historyexcept Cuba, of course-has ever received weapons so capable of killing people as the MI-24. The Sandinists, in addition to increasing the size of the armed forces to the unprecedented level of ll9,OOO troops, has amassed an increasing inventory of tanks, artillery, helicopters and other Soviet bloc equipment -including, I might add, hundreds of Soviet-made and supplied SAM-7 surface-toair missiles -which threaten and intimidate their neighbours and their own people. We estimate the Soviet bloc arms shipments to the Sandinist Government have totalled some $500 million. These shipments have included some 340 tanks and armoured vehicles, 70 long-range howitzers and rocket launchers and 30 helicopters, including a dozen fast, heavily armed attack helicopters. The Sandinists’ arms inventories dwarf those of the combined forces of their Central American neighbours. As a matter of fact and of interest, Nicaragua has three times as many tanks as Mexico, which has 30 times the population of Nicaragua. 56. Armed to the teeth, the Sandinists have hopeiessly upset the military equilibrium in Central America, creatirig the major se&r&y problem for the region, a problem, I might add, which the Government of Nicaragua seems very reluctant to deal with in the Contadora process. 57. With regard to the reference to &International Court of Justice, I might add that of the 15 judges on that Court, 10 of the countries to which those judges belong reject the compulsory authority of the International Court of Justice, including some of Nicaragua’s closest friends. 58. In typical “Alice in Wond.erland” fashioa. the Sandinists are now asserting, contrary to fact, that its attack helicopter was downed by an “anti-air projectile of the red-eye type, also known as a SAM-7”. The statement is typical of Sandinist innuendo. By using the term “redeye”, it implies that the missile is of United States manufacture. “Red-eye” means that the projectile is heat-seeking. Nicaragua knows that this projectile is not 59. It is also ironic that the Sandinists should call the democratic resistance a “terrorist” organization which might constitute a threat to civilian aviation.‘This from a r6gime which has opened its borders to the most notorious international terrorist groups in the world, groups which have’raised to irew heights of barbarity the practice of terrorism against innocent civilians. 60. The reference was made to an Orwellian view of things. That was a look in the mirror on the part of Nicaragua. 61. In addition to aid to the Colombian M-19, which carried out the recent assault on Colombia’s Palace of Justice, the Sandinists have provided logistical, material and moral support to other .Latm American terrorist groups such as the Argentine Montoneros, the Uruguayan Tupamaros and the Chilean MIR. In Central America, the Sandinists have provided safe houses, communications headquarters, arms depots, vehicles shops, training camps and transport of military(supplies, including arms, to the Salvadorian guerrillas. Sandmist involvement in Salvadorian guerrilla terrorism was particularly evident during the recent kidnapping of President Duarte’s daughter, when negotiations concerning her release were channelled through Managua. 62. Nicaragua’s other neighbours-Honduras and Costa Rica-have also suffered from Nicaraguan-sponsored subversion in the form of armed attacks, bombmgs, attempted assassinations and other violence. Nor is Nicaragua’s role’as a haven for terrorism confined solely to Latin America. The Sandiists have also offered refuge to terrorists from Europe and have assiduously’developed contacts with terrorist groups from the Middle East. 63. Evidence of Cuban participation in combat activities against the Nicaraguan people will not come as any surprise to this body. The increasingly important role Cuban military advisers have come to play in combat against the Nicaraguan resistance was illustrated by the fact that there were Cubans aboard the helicopter shot down by the resistance forces. My Government has compiled an extensive list of reports from Nicaraguan citizens, most of them former soldiers who have witnessed the growing Cuban role in the Sandinist armed forces. These accounts detail the Cuban security and military network and the omnipresence of Cuban advisers, trainers and technicians from command levels in the Ministries of Interior and Defence down to individual combat platoons and from the operation of equipment, including Soviet-supplied helicopters, in combat to the,disciplining of individual Nicaraguan soldiers. 64. According to former Sandiist officials, ‘the massive Cuban presence has caused dissatisfaction, with many 65. The 10 Nicaraguan requests to convene the Security Council continue to manifest a tedious regularity and a transparency of purpose. On every occasion that Nicaragua has appeared before the Council, it has sought either to forestall the progress of the Contadora process or to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States by seeking to influence our domestic olitical debate about Central America. In either case, I! icaragua has deliberately misused the Council and converted it into a propaganda forum precisely at a time when its democratic neighbours have attempted to work, through the Contadora process, to achieve a negotiated settlement to a regional conflict. 66. Most recently Nicaragua declined to attend meetings in Cartagena to discuss the future of Contadora, and now it calls for a six-month suspension of the Contadora negotiations. Nicaragua was the only country to vote against a recent resolution on Contadora in the General Assembly of the Organixation of American States which called for the Central American countries and the Contadora Group to persevere in their efforts to conclude the negotiations to achieve a peace agreement. Contadora’s most fundamental premise is that the regional crisis is a Latin American crisis and that it can best be addressed by Latin Americans themselves. The United States continues to believe that the Contadora negotiating process offers the best prospect for achieving peace in Central America. We hope that Nicaragua will soon decide to join its neighbours in working towards that goal. 67. Now is not the moment to abandon Contadora. The Government of Nicaragua would have us condone its unilateral refusal to continue a negotiating process after more than two years of arduous efforts to narrow the areas of difference in an extremely complex regional pattern. We in this body are all well aware of the effort required to build a lasting peace. Two years of negotiations seem very little, given the complexity of the issues, the necessity for adequate verification mechanisms and the requirement that the final agreement comprehensively embrace the full range of concerns of five different nations. Contadora’s accomplishments are far from meagre. 68. Begun in January 1983, the Contadora negotiations produced in September of that year the basis for an 69. To what end, one must ask. Will Nicaragua use this time to defuse violent dissent within its borders by opening the political system to the country’s opposition elements, to implement its solemn obligation in the Contadora process to promote national reconciliation? The Government of Nicaragua’s recent actions make it difficult for us to imagine that it will pursue that wise course. Rather, it would appear that the Sandinists will continue to ignore the reality of growing domestic opposition to theirpolicies and will instead shrilly blame this phenomenon on external factors. 70. I reiterate my country’s firm belief that the Sandinists bear the full responsibility for the consequences of their aggression against the Nicaraguan people and their neighbours. It is our fervent hope that this incident will bring home to the commandanres in Managua the cost of their oppression and hostile actions. For the sake of peace in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America, the Sandinists must urgently take steps to come to terms with their own people. 71. The $RESIDENT (interprekrionfrom French): The Acting Mrmster for External Relations of Nicaragua has asked to be allowed to speak in exercise of the right of reply, and I call on him; 72. Mr. .TINOCO (Nicaragua) (interpretation from Spanish): I will be brief. I wish only to make some basic clarification and a number of suggestions. 73. First, as regards Nicaragua’s position on Contadora, it is surprising that a representative of the United States Government should come here and pose as a defender of a genuine Latin American effort, against which the United States Government has been fighting for the past two years. 74. The United States Government is precisely; that which.month after month has been refusing to respond in practice to the request of the Contadora Group that it put an end to its aggression against Nicaragua. On numberless occasions the Contadora Group has called’for an end to the policies that increase tension in the area, but the United States has done the exact opposite and continues to step up its war of aggression. 75. It is the Government of the United States, which now claims to be defending and upholding Contadora, that has 76. I will give a concrete example. On 9 January 1985 the Contadora Group, for the first time,. called upon the Governments of the United States and Nicaragua in a declaration [S/16889, annex] to proceed in greater depth with the Manzanillo talks to enable the Contadora negotiating process to make progress. On 17 January, just a week later, the United States unilaterally broke off those talks. That is the kind of support and backing that the United States has been giving the Contadora process. Its backing amounts to disrespect for and ignoring of this kind of appeal by the Contadora Group. 77. But the most serious matter here’is that the United States has tried hard to create the. fiction in Central America that it is possible to reach an agreement among the Central American Governments without first halting the United States war against Nicaragua. This has not been done in private, diplomatic talks but as open rejection, amounting to a negation, of the Contadora process. Secretary of State George Shultz, for example, in the Cayman Islands on his way to the meeting of the Organization of American States at Cartagena, made statements, I which were published in the Los Angeles Times on 2 December 1985, in which he said outright that even ifthe five Central American countries were to sign a peace agreement the United States would continue to support the counter-revolution. That is the kind of support that the United States Government has been giving the Contadora process. That is the reality of the systematic United. States policy towards Contadora and that is what has put the Contadora process in its present difficult position, in which it is impossible to make progress precisely because of the total lack of willingness by the United. States to come to an understanding with the-Nicaraguan revolution and seek a negotiated, political way out of the Central American crisis. 78. With regard to another remark, L was struck by the fact that in his statement the representative of the United States seemed to be saying that his Government is prevented by law from giving weapons or missiles to mercenary forces and that the United States Government is complying strictly with that prohiiition. If that is true, I would suggest to that representative that he should suggest to Mr. Shultz that he in turn should suggest to the Department of State that it send an official note to the Government of Nicaragua denying that it has supplied missiles to the counter-revolutionaries and confirming that it has given no kindof help to those forces to acquire that type of weapon. I think that would possibly be a constructive result of United States participation in this debate. The meeting tose at 5p.m. HOW TO OBTAIN UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS United Nations publications may be obtained from bookstores and distributors throughout the world. Consult your bookstore or write to: United Nations, Sates Section, New York or Geneva. COMMENT SE PROCURER LES PUBLICATIONS DES NATIONS UNIES Les publications des Nations Unies sont en vente dans les librairies et les agences depositaires du monde entier. Informez-vous aupres de votre libraire ou adressez-vous it : Nations Unies, Section des ventes, New York ou Gentve. KAK HOJIYYHTb H3&4HHJ-I OPTAHM3AI&iH OB’bEAHHEHHbIX HAL&In ~3AaiiIiXOpraHH3aUwH O6%eAHHCHHblX Hawh MOXCHO K)'lYHTbB KHHXCHblXMafa3HHaX HarCHTCTBaXBOBCCXpaftOH~MHpa.HaBOAHTCCnpaBKw 06 H3AaHUIXBBaUleMKHHBHOM MKril3HHe HJIH llHUlHTC "9 aApCC)': OpraHH3aUHX 06?.CAHHeHHbIX Haunti, CCKUHK IlO IlpOAalKe H3AaHHti. HbIO-hOpK HAH )ICCIiC.LIa. COMO CONSEGUIR PUBLICACIONES DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS Las publicaciones de las Naciones Unidas es& en venta en librerfas y cams distribuidoras en todas partes de1 mundo. Consulte a su librero o dirljase a: Naciones Unidas, Seccidn de Ventas, Nueva York o Ginebra. Litho in United‘ Nations, New York 90-61439-April 1991-2,050