WEST EUROPE_
Say no to Reagan's
Nicaragua blockade
The following is an editorial from the May 9 issue, of Rouge, the weekly paper of the French section of the Fourth International.
near Madrid, there can no longer ve any doubt. Despite the shift of the Social Democratic government of Felipe Gonzales, the overwhelming majority of the peoples of Spain oppose the integration of the Spanish state in the imperialist alliance.
According to a poll in El Pais [the country's most respected mass circulation all-Spain daily], 54% of persons asked rejected NATO, 66% oppose the presence of the US bases, 74% see Reagan as a maker of war. The last figure itself is quite revealing of the state of shock produced by the US decision to blockade Nicaragua.
The masses of the Spanish state, to be sure, have plenty of reasons for so strongly opposing the Yankee grip on their country. Bilateral accords have established a virtual Americar tutelage over the Iberian Peninsula, for Portugal since 1946 and for the Spanish state since 1953. And the latter accord has been renewed by the Gonzales government.
Besides controlling the maritime approaches to the peninsula, the US has several dozen bases on Spanish state territory. The most important are the air and naval base at Rota (near Cadiz), which is being equipped with nuclear arms; and the air bases at Moron (near Seville), Sanjurjo (near Saragossa), and Torrejon (near Madrid), where about 15,000 US military personnel are permanently stationed.
These bases are vital for the US's policy of intervention in the Middle East, for which they serve as backup. For years, this US military presence helped to reinforce the Franco dictatorship. Today, it is a major factor in the brutal austerity imposed on the masses, inasmuch as US military "aid" has been made conditional on increasing the Spanish military budget and the Spanish state placing orders with US arms industries.
Thus, in 1983, the US extended 400 million dollars in military aid to Spain, but it got orders for military equipment worth ten times that amount. The contract given to McDonald Douglas the same year for 72 F-18 airplanes alone amounted to 1.6 billion dollars.
The May 4-5 demonstrations have in fact given the signal for a new offensive of the European antiwar movement. They have opened the way for widening the mobilizations against foreign bases, especially in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. They have outlined the perspective for a new advance of the entire European peace movement, with a more and more conscious radical anti-imperialist orientation.
After the Easter demonstrations in Great Britain and West Germany, after the May 4 antimissiles day of action in the Netherlands and the anti-Reagan the Netherlands and the anti-Reagan demonstrations May 4-5 in West Germany the tone has been set.
The outery everywhere against Star Wars and its tragic implications in terms of austerity for the European and American peoples, the affirmation of uncondi-
Alan GWENN
After more than 100,000 persons demonstrated in the United States on April 20 and more than 100,000 marched in Spain and 50,000 in the streets of Bonn at the time of the BigSeven summit in protest against Reagan's aggressive policy, the US president decided on May 1 to declare a total embargo against Nicaragua. This, moreover, was just four days after he had been handed a rebuff by the US Congress, which refused to grant the 14 million dollars in aid that the White House chief had demanded for the former Somoza National Guards.
Was this cynical revenge of an embittered old man for his recent diplomatic defeat? No! Reagan is just giving a new push to the powerful military machine that is already in motion in his country. Although the Congress's rejections caused some problems, aid to the contras has never stopped. There is always a flow of money, among other things from CIA dominated organizations, to those who are fighting against the new democratic system in Nicaragua.
For five years, the US has been waging an undeclared war, providing training and logistic support from its base in Honduras for Reagan's celebrated "freedom fighters," who are sowing death and deprivation in Nicaragua. More than 80,000 peasants, soldiers, and teachers have lost their lives and the economy has suffered more than a billion dollars in losses.
Reagan's blockade is intended most of all as a last warning. In fact, a trade embargo had already been instituted. In 1983, the US made a major reduction in the Nicaraguan sugar import quota. Considerable pressures were put on the Inter-American Development Bank to block Managua's requests for credits, and they achieved their objective. Us exports to Nicaragua fell from 247 million dollars in goods in 1980 to 111.5 million dollars in 1984, and US imports have fallen from 214 million dollars to 57 million.
The blockade of Nicaragua will affect essentially spare-parts imports from the US. Having inherited an economy dominated by their powerful neighbor to the north, the Sandinistas have an industrial plant equipped mainly with US machinery. Without spare parts, many factories will be lett to the mercy of breakdowns. Another problem is insecticides, which today represent 9.14 million dollars of Nicaraguan imports. These effects are compounded by the impact of encirclement and isolation. The embargo also bans all air and sea links between the US and Nicaragua.
The US wants to defeat us by hunger, to force us to our knees by economic difficulties, but it will never succeed." That was the answer of the Sandinista Front. And it points up the real intentions of Reagan and his advisers. But the Nicaraguans are not alone in saying "they will never succeed." That is the meaning of an appeal published in Le Monde on Tuesday, May 8, signed by 100 well-known European personalities. "European public opinion has a decisive role to play, along with the currents in the US itself that oppose the escalation of the war. Our honor is at stake, as well as our own interests, because freedom for the Nicaraguans also means freedom for us."