Dirty Little Wars (Nicaragua)
exerpted from the book
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You:
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
"The Torturers' Lobby"
by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
Central America's revolutionary movements were too strong
to be dislodged with a weekend war like the ones in Grenada and
Panama. A longer-term, more sophisticated strategy was needed-one
that kept US troops out of the line of fire while enabling the
Pentagon to confront "the enemy." The strategy that
carried the day in Washington became known as the doctrine of
"low-intensity conflict." As Sara Miles observed in
her landmark 1986 analysis, Its name comes from its place on the
intensity spectrum of warfare which ascends from civil disorders,
through classical wars, to nuclear holocaust.... "This kind
of conflict is more accurately described as revolutionary and
counterrevolutionary warfare," explains Col. John Waghelstein,
currently commander of the Army's Seventh Special Forces. He warns
that the term "low-intensity" is misleading, as it describes
the level of violence strictly from a military viewpoint In fact,
Waghelstein argues, this type of conflict involves "political,
economic, and psychological warfare, with the military being a
distant fourth in many cases. In perhaps the most candid definition
given by a US official, Waghelstein declares that low-intensity
conflict is total war at the grassroots level."
The 1979 Sandinista revolution, which overthrew the Somoza
dictatorship in Nicaragua, rang alarm bells in Washington. The
Somoza family had ruled the country for 45 years after coming
to power by murdering its enemies. It was notorious for corruption
and violence, but it was also considered an unwavering ally of
the United States.
Anastasio Somoza was also one of the first Latin American
dictators to recognize the value of a good flack, hiring the Mackenzie
and McCheyne PR firm in New York, along with lobbyist William
Cramer, a former Republican congressman from Florida. In 1978,
Somoza's last full year in power, Mackenzie and McCheyne received
over $300,000 in fees from the Somoza government. As the revolution
gained momentum, Mackenzie and McCheyne partner Ian Mackenzie
was dispatched to counter negative reports characterizing the
dictator as corrupt, authoritarian, crude, cruel and overweight.
"The president is totally different from what people think,"
Mackenzie said. "He is intelligent, most capable, warm-hearted.
He is loyal and strong with his friends, compassionate with his
enemies.... By the sheer law of averages, Somoza has to have done
some good. Even Mussolini did some good for Italy." As an
example of the freedom that existed under the Somoza regime, Mackenzie
pointed to Nicaragua's opposition newspaper, La Prensa.
Two months later, La Prensa editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro
was gunned down in the street by Somoza's business partners, triggering
a paralyzing nationwide strike demanding Somoza's resignation.
Somoza hired a new flack, paying $7,000 per month for the services
of Norman L. Wolfson of the New York PR firm of Norman, Lawrence,
Patterson & Farrell. As Somoza's air force was decimating
Nicaraguan cities with aerial bombings during its final campaign
of terror, Wolfson-who didn't speak Spanish complained to who
ever would listen that reporters were trying to "knock down"
Somoza and had not "been entirely fair." (Wolfson's
memoir of his experience, titled "Selling Somoza: The Lost
Cause of a PR Man," appeared in the July 20, 1979, issue
of William Buckley's conservative National Review, which was on
sale at newsstands on July 19, the day Somoza fled the country.
In it, Wolfson describes his client as "a spoiled brat who
had evolved into middle age, a know-it-all who asked for advice
and couldn't take it, a boor, a rude, overbearing bully"
who fantasized about crushing the genitals of journalists.)
By the time Somoza fled Nicaragua, his family had accumulated
wealth estimated at $400 to $500 million. Meanwhile, half the
country's population was illiterate. One in three infants born
to poor Nicaraguans died before the age of one. More than 20,000
Nicaraguans suffered from advanced tuberculosis. The victorious
Sandinistas launched ambitious, popular vaccination and education
programs. They also broke new ground in foreign policy, seeking
alliances with Cuba and the Soviet Union. A line in the country's
new national anthem-"We fight the Yankees, enemies of humanity"-showed
just how far they intended to take Nicaragua from the Somoza days
of dependence and fealty to the United States.
The "low-intensity" strategy aimed at undermining
the Sandinistas was an ambitious concept, uniting Vietnam-era
counterinsurgency with civic action initiatives, psychological
warfare, public relations activities and civilian "development
assistance" projects traditionally considered beyond the
sphere of military responsibilities. On the economic level, the
US pressured international financial institutions to cut off loans
to Nicaragua and imposed a debilitating trade embargo. On the
political front, the US promoted carefully stage-managed elections
in El Salvador and Honduras. Psychological operations against
Nicaragua ranged from sabotage attacks to radio propaganda broadcasts.
On the military level, US strategy was designed to avoid the commitment
of US ground troops, while doing everything possible to create
the fear of a US invasion.
The US also brought together Somoza's dispersed National Guard
and reorganized it into what became known as the contra army.
At worst the contras had no political leadership, so the White
House recruited a group of disaffected Nicaraguan businessmen
and scripted speeches to help them pose as the contras' "civilian
leadership." The civilian leaders included Edgar Chamorro,
a Managua advertising executive who later became disaffected with
the cause. Chamorro complained bitterly in his 1987 book, Packaging
the Contras: A Case of CIA Disinformation, that the US had used
him as a civilian figurehead for an army over which he had no
real control.
The CIA paid Chamorro a salary of $2,000 per month plus expenses
for his work, which included bribing Honduran journalists and
broadcasters to write and speak favorably about the contras and
to attack the Nicaraguan government and call for its overthrow.
"Approximately 15 Honduran journalists and broadcasters were
on the CIA's payroll, and our influence was thereby extended to
every major Honduran newspaper and radio and television station,"
Chamorro said.
In 1983, the Reagan Administration began a series of major
military maneuvers in Honduras, coordinated with contra units
and the Salvadoran military. The maneuvers were carefully staged
to create the impression that they were preludes to a US invasion
of Nicaragua. In reality, as Miles observed, "The maneuvers
were not a preparation or cover for the war: they were the embodiment
of the war. . . Fears that the Administration may be threatening
to invade have been an integral part of the plan at the psychological
level. . . The first goal . . . was to squeeze the economy by
forcing a massive diversion of resources into defense.... Next
came psychological operations to feed on the conflict: leaflets
distributed throughout the country urged Nicaraguan youths to
escape the "totalitarian Marxist draft; radio stations of
the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) in Honduras urged revolt
against 'the communists who spend our national treasure on bullets
instead of food."
The Reagan administration faced a scandal in 1984 with the
disclosure that the CIA had produced a training manual for the
contras titled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare.
The strategy outlined in the text include recommendations for
selective assassination of Nicaraguan government officials. Critics
charged the CIA with encouraging indiscriminate assassination
of civilians. Miles observed, however, that the actual intent
of the document was more subtle: "There is a conscious effort
to reduce the presence of the civilian government, to remove successful
social programs and the ideological influence that comes with
them.... In practice, this means the targeted torture and assassination
of teachers, health workers, agricultural technicians and their
collaborators in the community This is not, as many critics charge,
"indiscriminate violence against civilians." . . . Rather,
the violence is part of a logical and systematic policy, and reflects
the changing pattern of the war.
from the book:
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You:
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
Common Courage Press, Box 702, Monroe, MA 04951
Toxic
Sludge